Kirata-jana-krti

i

KIRATA- JANA-KRTI

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

THE INDO-MONGOLOIDS

THEIR CONTRIBUTION
TO THE

HISTORY AND CULTURE OF INDIA

SUNITI KUMAR CHATTERJI

THE ASIATIC SOCIETY
1 , Park Street * Calcutta

0 The Asiatic Society

First Published in 1951

Revised Second Edition in December 1974

Reprinted in April 1998

SOCIETY

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Published by
Professor Amalendu De
General Secretary
The Asiatic Society
1 , Park Street
Calcutta-700 016

Printed by
Mr. Maqsood Hasan
New Asian Printers
29/7, Phears Lane
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Price : Rs. 100.00

Orp Namah Sivaya Kirdtdya
Otyi Nama Umdydi Sabctryai

Om ! Salutation to Siva, the All-Good, the Kirata
Om ! Salutation to Uma, the Mother, the Sabarl !

Arya-Dramida-Naipdda-Kiratdndtn kftir hi yd,
sveta-tdmrasita-svariid cdtur-varnya-mayi hitd;

rsibhir brdhmandir dip fa jina-buddhadi-de^ita,
vibhinrta-ruchi-hrdya ca vicitra-patha-hetutah :

sarva-devatmikd nitya jiva-brahmaikya-bhavani ,
sarvarp-saha dharitriva sarva-vdha sandtani.

dharma-nitir Bharatiya nitya-satyasya siddhaye
sarva-lokasya nityarp syddd hitdya ca sukhaya ca ,
vibudhdndm prasaddya , preyase sreyase *pi ca .

sva-karma-niratah sarve , caranto dharma-desandrp
hirpsa-lobha-vihinasca bhavantu sukhinah sad a .

FOREWORD

The Civilization of India is the joint creation of her diverse
peoples, Aryan, Dravidian, Austric (Kol) and Mongoloid. The
Aryan bases have always received the greatest attention, and
rightly so. A study of the Dravidian heritage has now been
taken up with increased interest since beginnings in this direc-
tion were made by Caldwell over a century ago. The Austric
elements too are now being investigated, and we are realising
its importance. The Mongoloid contribution has not yet been
seriously studied as an element in Indian history and civiliza-
tion. In the present monograph, an attempt has been made to
fill up the lacuna, in part indeed, while giving a general idea
of this lacuna.

In November 1947 at the invitation of the Education Depart-
ment of the Government of Assam, I gave, under the auspices
of the Asama Sahitya Sabha of Jorhat, three lectures on the
Indo- Mongoloid Contribution to Assamese History and Culture.
They were delivered in the hall of the Jagannath Barua College
at Jorhat in Assam, on the 2 1st, 22nd and 23rd November of
1947.

These three lectures formed the nucleus of the present work.
It is, however, quite a new monograph Which has been entirely
re-written and very largely augmented with more detailed treat-
ment of the subject, in its various aspects not covered by the
three discourses as originally delivered in the form of talks.

These lectures, covering about a fourth of the present work,
were the Pratibha Den Lectures for 1947, founded at the
instance of the late Sarat Chandra Goswami, distinguished
literary man of Assam, whose daughter Pratibha Devi, a highly
gifted and cultured lady, died at the young age of 21 in 1932,
leaving her bereaved husband, Sri Umakanta Goswami, M.A.,
B.L. (who was then Professor at Cotton College, Gauhati, and
is now Director of Public Instruction, Assam) and one son and
one daughter and her aged father. The present writer takes the
occasion to place on record his feeling of respect for the

VIII

memory of Pratibha Devi: the three lectures, in honour of one
who represented during her short span of life the best traditions
of Indian womanhood, enabled him to present his views before
the public for the first time, although only on some particular
aspects of the question.

The author expresses his grateful thanks to Sri Krishna
Kanta Handiqui, his old satirtha during his student days in
England in 1919*1921 and his very kind host during his stay at
Jorhat; to Sri Kuladhar Chaliha, M.P., Sri Nilmani Phookan,
Sri Gunagobinda Datta, Sri Dimbeswar Neog and other friends
in Jorhat; and to Professor Prabodh Chandra Sanyal, then
Director of Public Instruction, Assam, for many kindnesses
received from them. He also offers his respectful thanks to
Sir Jadunath Sarkar for kindly writing an appreciation of this
monograph.

‘Sudharma’

16 Hindusthan Park,

Calcutta,

November 26. 1950.

Suniti Kumar Chatterji

FOREWORD
to the Second Edition

The KirAta-Jana-Krti first appeared in the form of a contri-
bution to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta in
1950, and then it was released in 1951 in book-form with
certain additions— including a Foreword from the author, a note
of Appreciation from the late Sir Jadunath Sarkar, a List of
Contents (headings for its 100 sections, including the last one
on a Kirata Roll of Honour)— coming up to 94 closely printed
pages. A Second Edition was due for some years past, as the
book was well-received, and was used as a text book for
students of Indian History and Anthropology.

I am grateful to the authorities of the Asiatic Society of
Calcutta for bringing out this Second Edition, with a few
alterations and some additions. I have utilised some of my
other papers for incorporating these additions. The work is
now published in a different format, with 105 sections and 187
pages. The author craves the indulgence of the readers for a
few cases of repetition which have escaped his notice, and he
hopes that the book, for the importance of the subject at least,
will continue to receive the approbation of scholars and
interested persons.

Sri Aparna Prasad Sen Gupta of the Grantha-Parikrama
Press deserves my thanks for the great care he took in getting
the book through the press, inspite of very great difficulties
owing to power load-shedding. I also thank the office personnel
of the Asiatic Society with Sri Biram Mukherjea in charge of
Book Productions for their care and helpfulness in this
connexion.

Calcutta

16 Hindusthan Park
26 November, 1974

Suniti Kumar Chatterji

This Book is Inscribed with the Names of

Pandit Sri Siddhiharsha VajrAchArya (1879-1952),
of the Darbar Ms. Library, Kathmando, Nepal,
Scholar of Sanskrit and Newari and Nepalese Buddhist Lore;

Sr! Krishna KAnta Handiquj, M.A.,
Ex-Vice-Chancellor, Gauhati University, Assam,
Emi&ent Sanskritist and Linguist;

MahArAj-KumAr Captain Sr! Priyavrata Singh, B.A.,
of Manipur State,

Soldier, Administrator, Artist ;

SrI DhIrendra Krishna Deva-varman,
of Tripura State,

Artist and Musician,

Former Principal, Kalabhavan, Visva-Bharatl,
Companion in my Tour in Malaya, Java and Bali;

Sr! Rup-NAth Brahma, B.A., B.L. (1900-1968),
Minister for Forests, Justice and Registration,

Assam Government;

and

Sr! Roy Rowland Thomas, M.A., B.L., P.R.S.,

Late Principal, Cotton College, Gauhati,
Educationist and Khasi Leader :

Talented Sons of Mother India,
Representatives and Leaders of the Kirata Peoples
and Custodians of their Culture in Modern India

APPREC I ATION

from Professor Sir Jadunath Sarkar, Kt.,

C.I.E., M.A., D.Litt.

Calcutta, 21st March, 1951

Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterji,

Your book on the Kiratas is very useful. It summarises
in a clear methodical manner the existing knowledge
on the subject, now lying scattered over countless
journals and rare books.’ It is a work which badly
needed doing, and you have done it with your well-
known scholarship and thoroughness. It ought to serve
as a road-chart for future workers on the cultural
history of these peoples.

Jadunath Sarkar,
Hony. m.r.a.s.

LIST OF CONTENTS

Page

1. India as a Meeting Place of Races, Languages and

Cultures ... ... ... 1

2. The Many Racial and Linguistic Elements behind the

Unity of India ... ... ... 2

3. ‘Unity in Diversity’— the Basic Character of Indian

' Culture as a Composite ... ... 3

4. Formation of an Indian People with its Sanskrit or

Sanskritic Culture ... ... ... 4

5. Progressive ‘Sanskritisation’ of the Various Elements

in India ... ... ... 4

6. The Austric and Dravidian Elements : Restricted

Area and Influence of the Mongoloid Element ... 5

7. Resume of the Racial Elements in India ... 6

8. The Negritos or Negroids ... ... 7

9. The Proto-Australoids : Austric Peoples ... 7

10. The Ancient Austrics of India : Ni$adas (Nishadas),

Sabaras, Pulindas, Bhillas, Kolias ... ... 9

11. The Dravidian Speakers: Ddsa-Dasyu : their

Contribution ... ... ... 9

12. The Western Brachycephals ... ... 10

13. The Aryan-speaking Nordics : their Advent into

India ... ... ... 11

14. The Ancient Hindu Civilization a Joint Creation of

the Austrics, the Dravidians and the Aryans, and
later the Mongoloids ... ... ... 12

1 5. The Distribution of the Four Peoples, Nisada, Dramida

( Dravida ), Ary a and Kirata : and the Importance of
the Aryan-speakers as a Herrenvolk ... 14

16. The Mongoloid Element in Himalayan and North-

eastern India ... ... ... 15

17. Study of the non-Aryan (Austric and Dravidian)

Elements in Indian Civilization ... ... 16

18. Study of the Mongoloid Contribution so far neglected :

XIV

Reasons for this Neglect ... ... 18

19. The Mongoloid Tribes in India : Mongoloids

outside India ... ... ... 20

20. Sino-Tibetan Mongoloid Expansion ... 21

21. The Sino-Tibetan Speeches ... ... 22

22. Tabular Representation of the Sino-Tibetan Lan-

guages ... ... ... 24

23. The Mongoloids in Ancient India : the Kiratas ... 26

24. The Kiratas in Vedic Literature ... ... 27

25. The Meanings of the word Kirata , and New Indo-

Aryan Words connected with it ... ... 28

26. The Kiratas in the Mahcibharata and'other Ancien"

Works ... ... ... 30

27. Reconstruction of the Early Mongoloid ( Kirata )

Movements in India ... ... 36

28. Indo- Mongoloid as a proposed Equivalent of Kirata 37

29. Kol or Austric Influence on Sino-Tibetan ... 38

30. The Licchavis of North Bihar, and the Indo-Mongo-

loids in Videha ... ... ... 40

31. Indo-Mongoloid Tribes : the Himalayan Group : the

Newars : the Ancient Kuninda People ... 40

32. The Bod ( = =Bhofa ) or Tibetans ... 43

33. The North Assam Tribes of Indo-Mongoloids ... 44

34. The Botfos (Baras) ... ... ... 45

35. The Nagas ... ... 47

36. The Kuki-Chins ... ... ... 48

37. Other Indo-Mongoloids of Assam ... ... 49

38. The Austric-speaking Khasis ... ... 50

39. The Ahom ( Aham , Asam) People .of the Siamese-

Chinese Group ... ... ... 51

40. Indo-Mongoloid Fusion in the Indian Body-Politic

still continuing— in Nepal, in Assam and in North
and East Bengal ... ... ... 52

41. Nature of Indo-Mongoloid Participation in Hindu

Culture ... ... ... 53

42. The Mongoloid 'Character’: and the Achievement of

the Indo-Mongoloids ... ... ... 54

43. Some Outstanding Characteristics of Mongoloid

XV

(Tibeto-Burman) Culture (according to W. C.
Smith) ... ... ... 57

44. The Early Mongoloids and Hindu History and Culture :

Some Ancient Points of Contact ... ... 58

45. The Indo-Mongoloids in Nepal : the name ‘Nepal’

( Nepala ) ... ... ... 63

46. Early Dynasties of Nepal : the Gopala or Abhira

Kings : the Kirata Kings with non-Aryan Names 65

47. The Soma-vaqi$i and SQrya-vaqiSl (Licchavi) Kings of

Nepal, from Bihar : AipSu-varman ... 66

48. Nepal in the 8th-9th Centuries : Tibeto-Nepalese

Relations ... ... ... 68

49. The Jhakuri Kings of Nepal, 9th- 12th Centuries :

Nepal becomes culturally an integral part of India 69

50. The Karpataka Kings : their Cultural Contribution 70

51. The Malla Kings of Nepal, to 1768 A. D. ... 71

52. The Brahmapical Malla Kings of Dullu and Jumla in

West Nepal, 13th-17th centuries ... ... 72

53. Newari Literature ... ... ... 73

54. Literatures in the other Tibeto-Burman speeches of

Nepal ... ... ... 78

55. Newar Culture, particularly under the Mallas ... 79

56. The Qorkhasln Nepal : Gorkha Valour and Military

Virtues ... ... 83

57. The Indo-Mongoloids in Assam and Bengal : Linguis-

tic Influences ... ... ... 84

58. Early Contact between Assam and North India ... 86

59. Pre-Aryan (Indo-Mongoloid) Toponomy in Assam :

‘Lauhitya, Brahma-putra,’ etc, ... ... 88

60. Bhaskara-varman of Kamarupa : the Glory of his

Reign ... ... ... 90

61. Bhaskara-varman and China : the Tao-teh-king of

Lao-tzu ... ... ... 92

62. Bhaskara-varman’s Presents to Harsha-vardhana ... 95

63. The ‘Mleccha’ Dynasty of Sala-stambha in Assam 97

64. The Dynasty of Pralambha ... ... 97

65. The Kamarupa Palas : Brahma-pala, his Queen Kula-

devt : Ratna-pala ... ... ... 98

XVI

66. Timgya-deva, c. 1100 A.D. ; Vaidya-deva and Budha-

dcva ; the Lunar Dynasty Kings .. ... 99

67. The Turki Invasion of Kamarupa ... 100

68. The Coming of the Ahorm : the names ‘Asam, Asam,

Asama, Assam’, etc. ... ... ... 101

69. Ahom vs. Bodo in Assam. ... .. 102

70. The Early Ahom Kings ... ... ... 104

71. Hinduisation of the Ahoms : Ahom Gods and

Goddesses and Hindu Equivalents .. ... 05

72. The Later Ahom Kings : Highest Glory ofthe Ahoms

in the 17th and 18th Centuries : Kings Gadadhar
Simha (Su-pat-pha), 1681-1696, and Rudra Simha
(Su-khrung-pha) 1696-P14 106

73. The Achievement of the Ahoms ... 110

74. The Koch Empire of the 16th Century: Early History

of the Botfo-Koch Tribe ... ... Ill

75. King Danuja-mardana-deva: an Early Koch Prince? 115

76. Legends on the Coins of the Independent Hindu

(Indo-Mongoloid) Kings of Eastern India, from
1400 A.D. ... ... 116

77. The Greatest Period of Koch History : Vi£va-Simha,

Nara-narayana Sirpha, and £ukla-dhvaja or Cila-
Ray, 1 6th Century ... ... 118

78. The Garos ... 121

79. The Chutiyas of East Assam 121

80. The Dima-sa or Kacharis ... 122

81. The Indo-Mongoloids in Sylhet ... 126

82. Islam and the Indo-Mongoloids of North and East

Bengal ... ... 127

83. The Southern Bodos : the Old Kingdom of Pattikera

(Comilla) ... ... ... 128

84. The Tipras, and the Tripura (Tippera) Kingdom ... 130

85. King Dhanya-manikya of Tripura 133

86. King Vijaya-manikya of Tripura (1529-1 570) 134

87. The Later Tripura Kings : Decay of Tripura Power 135

88. Religion among the Tipras ... ... 135

89. Tripura Achievement ... ... ... 138

90. Sanskrit and other Texts, and Pre-Hindu Indo-

XVII

Mongoloid Religion ... ... ... 139

91. The Backward Indo-Mongoloid s : the North Assam

Tribes, Nagas, Mikirs ... ... ... 140

92. The Kuki-Chins ... ... ... 141

93. The Meitheis or Manipuris ... ... 142

94. A ‘Manipura-Purapa’ : Early Manipuri Myths and

Legendary History ... ... ... 144

95. Later Manipur History : the Story of Khamba and

Thoibi ... ... ... 151

96. Manipur History after the 15th Century : Chaitanya

Vaishnavism in Manipur ... ... 152

97. The Culture of Manipur ... ... 155

98. Manipuri (Meithei) Literature ... ... 157

99. The Khasisand Syntengs : ‘Synteng = Jayanta, Jaintia’ :

the Old Hindu Kingdom of Jayanta-pura ... 166

100. Khasi Literature ... ... ... 170

101. The Early Indo-Mongoloid Kings of Chittagong and

Arakan ... ... ... 174

102. The Kirata World Beyond India ... 178

103. Indo-Mongoloid Literature ... ... 179

104. Conclusion ... ... ... 183

105. ‘Kiratavadana-Namani’ : An Indo-Mongoloid Roll

of Honour ... ... ... 184

Some Additions and Corrections, and Notes

Page 25 — Under Singpho, add Duwniya, Turun
Under Khamti, add Aiton, Phake
Page 96 — /. 10, correct to ear of the millet
Pages 115-128 — Correct the Section Numbers to 75-83.

Note under Section 77 : The Greatest Period of Koch
History, btc. — pp. 118-121.

A unique commemorative gold coin — a sort of a memorial
medal — of the Koch King Nara-narayaija has been discovered
by Sri Vasanta Chaudhury and Sri Parimal Ray. This was
exhibited by them with a short note, at the All-India Numis-
matic Conference held in Calcutta in December 1974. Silver
coins of Nara-narayana dating Saka 1477 (=1555-1556 A.D.)
have been found, but this gold coin has the date Saka
1486 (=1564 A.D.). On the obverse, there is in the centre,
within a circle, the grotesque figure of a lion, with a crescent
with a dot over the lion’s mane; and there is a Sanskrit
legend in Bengali characters inscribed anti-clockwise along
the rim around the figure of the lion : Dig-vijayi-Samara-
Sirpha, Sr ini an - N a ra-nar ay ana- Bhvpalasy a Saka I486.

On the reverse, in a double circle, with dots between the
lines, there is a five-line legend in archaic Bengali letters :

<>,: <v r / rf nra-GaurHcara{naka)-ma\la-madhuka\Tasya.

There is a device of Krishna (with the flute) and Radha at the
centre of the third line, and at the termination of the last line
there is the figure of the Sat-korta with the dot inside.

Th is coin evidently celebrates the victories of Nara-narayana
in Eastern India (Assam Valley, the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, and
Manipur, Tipperah and part of Sylhet). The figure of the
lien is in the style of the Tripura coins, and is quite significant
In this context.

The coin is thus a striking testimony of the military prowess
and political greatness of an Indo-Mongoloid King of Bengal,

XX

who was a worthy contemporary of Emperor Akbar the Great
in the middle of the 16th century.

Note under Section 88 : Religion among thb Tipras, pp.

135 - 138 .

Sri Vasanth Chaudhury and Sri Parimal Ray have made
another numismatic discovery of the highest cultural value
which they also announced before the All-India Numismatic
Conference in Calcutta during December 1974. Through the
kindness and courtesy of Messrs. Chaudhury and Ray, 1 could
handle and study this unique coin in silver, and I am taking
the liberty of printing below the typed Note on the coin pre- -
pared and read by them [adding a few remarks of mine with-
in square brackets].

“Representation of the Chaturda§a Devatas on a Coin of
Ratna-manikya-deva of Tripura.

“On the basis of the coins dated 3aka 1386, struck by the
King Ratna-mapikya-deva, he is to be considered the earliest of
the coin-issuing rulers of Tripura.

“The present authors can lay a modest claim to the correct
and now accepted reading of the date which had proved to be
elusive for over half a century.

“According to early historical records, Ratna-Fa (alias Ratna-
mapikya) had sought asylum in the court of the Sultan of
Bengal, and with the help of the Muhammadan Sultan he
attacked Tripura, defeated his father and brothers, and install-
ed himself as the King. The reign of Ratna-manikya saw the
dawn of a new era in Tripura, both politically and socially.
During his ‘reign, thousands of Bengali families — Brahmans,
Vaidyas and Kayasthas — came from various parts of Bengal
and settled in Tripura. In fact, almost a complete cross-section
of the traditional Hindu society was transplanted in Tripura.
He also introduced certain administrative reforms which were
modelled on the pattern prevalent in Bengal.

“The marginal legend and the lion-type coins of Ratna-
manikya are strikingly akin to the coins of Nasiruddin Muham-
mad Shah, who ruled as Sultan of Bengal a little before Ratna-
mapikya’s time. It might not be too far-fetched to presume that

XXI

Ratna-manikya had borrowed the coinage system of Tripura
from his benefactor the Sultan of Bengal.

“The coin of Ratha-manikya follows most of the typical
characteristics of the Muslim Pathan coinage of Bengal. It
may be described as follows :

Metal : AR (Silver).

Weight : 10.5 gms.

Shape and Size : Round, 27.45 mm.

Date: Saka 1386.

Obverse : Within double octagonal area, a legend
(in archaic Bengali script) :
Srl-Sri-yuta/Ratna-mapi/kya-devafc/.

Reverse : One horizontal line almost dividing the
reverse into two semi-circles. The upper
semi-circle contains a number of verti-
cal lines overlapped by another concave
curve. This motif apparently bears a
close resemblance to Tughra style of
Arabic writing on the coins of the Sul-
tans of Bengal. But at the lower semi-
circle of the reverse, there is a legend
in Bengali characters which reads :
Srl-CaturdaSa-de / va-carana-para / Saka
1386.

“While the aforesaid vertical lines are fourteen in number,
we presume, therefore, that these fourteen vertical lines are
stylised representations of the fourteen gods and goddesses of
Tripura, i.e., the Caturdaia-devatas. [These vertical lines are
actually more than 14, and they resolve themselves clearly into
14 obelisks or pillar-like figures, which distinctly stand out sepa-
rately from each other — S. K. C.] Further, on a closer scrutiny
the concave overlapping curve mentioned above can be taken
to represent the traditional garland. This indeed is an interest-
ing example of stylistic representation of the 14 deities on
a coin.

“The following Bengali verse may be quoted from the
“Raja-mala”, as edited by Kali Prasanna Sen, which gives the
identification of the fourteen deities :

xxii

§jji, sta, *n, fsrra, *im i
aw, wn, sfor, awn ii
f^srpsra b'-j^r*! c'rai i

wcsjc^ 5 ^te?ca ^t, eafw n

Thus, Siva, Uma, Vishnu, Ma ( = Lakshml), SarasvatJ, Kumara,
GaneSa, Brahma, the Earth Goddess, the River Ganges, the
Sea, the Fire God, Kama and the Himalayas have been men-
tioned in the above verse.

“According to the same source, these deities were installed
by a legendary ruler of Tripura — a Raja Trilocana, who
was supposed to be a contemporary of Yudhishthira of the
Mahabharata.

“However, according to Suniti Kumar Chatterji, this form
of worship of the fourteen gods and goddesses is the outcome
of the transformation of the religion of the Indo-Mongoloid
people under Hindu inspiration. Where the non-Brahman
high priests, the Contais, ministered to the old pre-Hindu
gods, and retained the old rites and rituals, they gradually
absorbed the important Brahmanical deities, and their national
pantheon was transformed into the Caiurdafa-devatas.

“Subsequently, these fourteen deities have been identified
with the Brahmanical names, and thus the absorption of the
tribal religion by Hinduism was complete. The use of the
heads alone in lieu of full images is only something very un-
usual in the Hindu iconographic system. [It would appear that
we had first vertical columns or obelisks in place of full stand-
ing images, “Vertical Men”, and then only the heads were substi-
tuted in their place : and this may have some connexion with a
primitive Cult of the Head which appears to have prevailed
among Indo-Mongoloids and Austrics — S. K. C.J.

“The coin under discussion is in the possession of Sri
Vasanta Chaudhury and Sri Parimal Ray.”

[The coin, which is in perfect state of preservation, is thus a
piece of numismatic and epigraphic evidence of the highest
value, indicating the final transformation of the Mongoloid
(Botfo) Pantheon of an important section of the Indo-
Mongoloids into the orthodox Hindu Pantheon of the Puranas.
— S. K. C.]

KIRATA-JANA

KRTI

KIRATA-JANA-KRT1

The Indo-Mongoloids— their Contribution
to the History and Culture of India

1. India as a Meeting Place of Races, Languages and

Cultures

Rabindranath Tagore, in one of his great poems, has sung
of India as the Ocean where Humanity in all its diversity has
merged and united. He says : l ‘No one knows at whose call
so many streams of men flowed in resistless tides from places
unknown and were lost in one sea : here Aryan and non-Aryan,
Dravidian, Chinese, the bands of the Sakas and Hunas, and
Pathan and Mogul, have become combined in one body. The
door to the West has also been opened, and they bring
presents from there : they will give and they will take, they
will unite and be united, and will never go away, — in this
ocean-shore of the Great Humanity of Bharata or India/
This poem, Bhdrata-tlrtha or ‘the Sacred Waters of India’,
sums up in noble poetic language the main trend of India’s
history in the past and of India’s destiny in the future— how
there has been a synthesis of races and cultures in the past
leading to the creation and characterization of a composite
Indian people and a composite Indian civilisation, diverse in
its origin but united in its ideals and aspirations — ideals and
aspirations which are acceptable to all mankind ; and how
India looks forward to a still greater unification of all mankind,
both within her shores and outside.

i Keha nahi jane, kar ahwane kato manu$er dhara
durvara srote elo kotha ha te, samudre ha'lo hara :
hethay Aryya, hetha Anaryya, hethay Dravida, Cm.
Saka-Huna dal Pathan-Mogal ek dehe haTo Iln.
pascim aji khuliyache dwar, setha ha'te sabe anc upahar,
dibe ar nibe, milabe milibe. jabe na phire —
ei Bharater maha-manaver sagara-tire.

2

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

2. The Many Racial and Linguistic Elements behind the

Unity of India

As a matter of fact, from time immemorial peoples of
different races and languages and cultures have come to India,
and after an initial period of hostile contact in some cases,
finally settled down for a peaceful commingling and cultural
as well as racial fusion with their predecessors in the land.
There have been occasional clashes of interests and ideals or
of attitudes which are ultimately based on or linked up with
the desire to wield power and control pelf — on the political
and economic factors. But on the whole, after the bases of
an Indian civilisation were laid some 3,000 years ago by the
fusion of the culture-worlds of the speakers of the Austric,
the Dravidian and the Aryan languages, there has been a
continuous and a general enrichment of this civilisation and
extension of it century by century through the arrival of later
incomers. The Negrito or Negroid, the Proto-Australoid or
Austric, the ‘Dravidian’, the ‘Aryan’, and the ‘Mongoloid’
peoples of pre-historic times started the trend or movement of
Indian History which was taken up by the Assyrian and the
Elamite invaders, by the Medc and the Persian, the Mace-
donian and the Greek, the Syrian and the Phoenician, the
Sakas and the Rushans, the later Iranians, the Huns and the
early Turks, the Islamised Arabs, the later Islamised Turks
and Iranians, the Afghans and the ‘Moguls’, and subsequently
by the peoples of modern Europe — the Portuguese, the Dutch,
the French and the English. All these have contributed to
the formation of the great body of Humanity that is India,
forming a fifth of the human race, and to the creation of a
mentality and a culture to which nearly half of mankind owes
allegiance or from which it finds inspiration. An Indian
person, who has a right perception of his country’s past and
its achievment and heritage, which are derived from so many
races and nations and mentalities and cultures which are all
stamped with the stamp of India, cannot but feel that he is
‘more truly a cosmopolitan or international than representa-
tives of most other peoples.

UNITY IN DIVERSITY OF INDIAN CULTURE

3

3. ‘Unity in Diversity’ — the Basic Character of Indian
Culture as a Composite

The Unity in Diversity that is so characteristic of Indian
civilisation presents as its own consequence a Harmony of
Contrasts — the harmony being based more or less on the follow-
ing matters : a sense of Unity of all Life as the expression of
an Unseen Reality which is both immanent and transcendent ;
a Desire for Synthesis, to combine apparently disconnected
or discordant fragments in life as well as experience in their
proper place in an Essential Unity ; a rigid Adherence to the
Intellect, while seeking to harmonise it in the higher plane
with Emotion, with Intuition and with Mystic Perception ; a
Recognition of'the Sufferings and Sorrows of Life, and an
Attempt to go to the Root Causes of these Sufferings and
Sorrows ; a Feeling for the Sacredness of all Life ; and, above
all, a great Tolerance for all other Beliefs and Points of View.
The higher thought of Hinduism in its three forms of
Brahmanism, Buddhism and Jainism ; the later expressions of
Indian religion like Sikhism and the various sectarian faiths ;
the Sufi form of Islam as it developed in India, after taking
shape in Mesopotamia and Iran and Central Asia ; besides
Zoroastrianism as it was established in India ; and Indian
Christianity in some of its aspects : these, showing the highest
expressions of the human spirit through the Medium of
Sanskrit and other Aryan languages of India, through Tamil
and other Dravidian speeches, through Persian and English,
embody the underlying Harmony,

The intermingling of different races and cultures, which
took place in varying proportions and under special local
conditions in the different areas of India, gave rise to certain
composite types with more or less common characteristics.
There are also extreme types representing the original races
surviving in their purer forms where this racial fusion or
mixture could not be thorough or far-reaching — sometimes
owing to the lateness of contacts. But nevertheless, whether
in the more or less purely ‘Dravidian’ area of Travancore or
Cochin, or the Mongoloid (Newar) tract of the valley of Nepal,
or in the Islamised, i.e., Iranian and Arabistic surroundings of

4 K1RATA-JAN A-KRTI

Lahore and Haidarabad, there is present in a subtle form the
atmosphere of a common Indian spirit which is difficult to>
miss when we look below the surface and which is absent else-
where, outside India and outside the lands which in ancient
and early medieval times formed part of a Greater India, like
Nepal, and like Ceylon (which is really a province of India in
population and language and culture), Burma, Siam, Cambodia,
Sumatra, Java and Bali.

4 . Formation of an Indian Pfople with its Sanskrit or
Sanskritic Culture

The thing which expresses this atmosphere of Pan-India is -
the Sanskrit language or a language derived from or connected
with Sanskrit. Indian Culture is, in fact, Sanskrit Culture , or
Sanskritic Culture . It is expressed either through Sanskrit—
directly ; or indirectly through Modern Indian languages of
Aryan, Dravidian, Austric or Sino-Tibetan origin ; or even
through a highly Persianised Sanskritic language like Urdu,
the Muslim form of Hindi, which may outwardly or formally
ignore Sanskrit and the Sanskritic heritage.

Sankrit in its origin is an Aryan or Indo-European language,
as we all know. But in its evolution on the soil of India, the
non-Aryan peoples had a share in its development — in
determining its tendencies and its history, helping to change
its phonetics and its grammar and to modify and add to its
vocabulary. It was thus a joint product of both Aryan and
non-Aryan, so that it could become by 500 B.C. the most
natural vehicle of a composite Indian — Aryan-ct/m-non-
Aryan — culture.

5. Progressive ‘Sanskritisation’ of the Various Elements

in India

The subsequent history of civilisation in India is the expan-
sion and elaboration of this Sanskrit culture and its slow but
inevitable acceptance by all the various peoples of India. And

‘sanskritisation’ : the kirata area

3

‘■this went on hand in hand with the spread of Sanskrit or
Indian culture in lands out:«de India (Ceylon; Afghanistan
and Eastern Iran ; Central Asia or Serindia ; Tibet, Mongolia ;
Indo-China including Burma, Siam, Cambodia and Cochin
China ; Malaya and Indonesia — all of which are lands of a
Greater India ; as well as China and its cultural dependencies
Korea, Japan and Viet-narn). The progressive Sanskritisation
of the various pre-Aryan or non-Aryan peoples in their culture,
their outlook and their ways of life, forms the keynote of India
through the ages. And in the course of this 'Sanskritisation’,
the affected peoples also brought their own spiritual and
material milieus to bear upon the Sanskrit and Sanskntic
culture which they were adopting, and thus helped to modify
and to enrich it in their own circles.

This ‘Sanskritisation’ would appear to have been opposed
by the advent of a militant Islam and an aggressive Christianity
in some parts of India. But in spite of an occasional set-back,
the leaven has never been inactive.

6. The Austric and Dravidian Elements : Restricted Area
and Influence of the Mongoloid Element

The peoples speaking Austric and Dravidian languages,
through their interaction with those of Aryan speech, laid the
foundations of this ‘Sanskrit’ or Ancient Hindu culture of
India. Austric and Dravidian elements in Indian culture have
been to some extent stuoied, and these studies are still being
carried on by competent scholars. But there has never been
an attempt at a general appraisement of the Mongoloid or
Sino-Tibetan elements in Indian culture. One of the reasons
has been the rather restricted area in India over which the
Mongoloid elements were at work. While the speakers of
Austric and Dravidian appear to have spread over the greater
part of India, the Sino-Tibetan speaking Mongoloids were
■ confined only to a part of India, namely its Northern and
North-eastern tracts, corresponding to the present-day Nepal
(particularly its centre and east), and the sub-Himalayan areas.
North Bihar, North Bengal, East Bengal, and above ail, Assam*

6

KIRATA-JANA-KRTi

A study of the Mongoloid contribution to the development
of history and culture in Eastern India (including Nepal) will-
certainly be regarded as an important aspect of Indology, and
it has its own fascination also ; and such a study is sure to*
reveal important aspects of Indian civilisation in some of its
regions of expansion, aspects which may not be noticeable
elsewhere.

7. Resume of the Racial Elements in India

In a study of the Mongoloid or Sino-Tibetan impret on
the composite culture of Hinduism in India and of its re per-
cussions on Eastern Indian history, a brief resume of the racial
elements in the Indian people and of the racial history of
India will be a helpful preliminary.

So far as the radical bases of the population of India have
been analysed, the presence of ‘six main races, with nine sub-
types’ has been postulated. These are (vide B. S. Guha, Racial
Elements in the Population , No. 22 in ‘Oxford Pamphlets on
Indian Affairs’, 1944, p. 8) —

1. The Negrito.

2. The Proto-Australoid.

3. The Mongoloid, consisting of —

(i) The Palaeo-Mongoloids of (u)> the long-headed, and

(b) the broad-headed types.

(ii) The Tibeto-Mongoloids.

4. The Mediterranean, comprising —

(i) The Palaeo-Mediterranean,

(ii) The Mediterranean, and

(iii) The so-called ‘Oriental’ types.

5. The Western Brachycephals, consisting of —

(i) The Alpinoid,

(ii) The Dinaric, and

(iii) The Armenoid.

6. The Nordic.

So far, it has not yet been proved that any kind of man
evolved on the soil of India — although it is not unlikely that

THE NEGRITOS : THE AUSTRIC PEOPLES

7

man of a type still persisting, or, it may be, long extinct, may
have originated from rome kind of anthropoid ape and so
may have been autochthonous to India ; but we have no
indication of it as yet. The chronological order of the entrance
into India of peoples belonging to the races enumerated above
appears to have been as indicated below.

8. The Negritos or Negroids

First, we have in pre-historic times, the arrival of the
Negritos, a dwarfish Negroid or Negro-like people, from
Africa. These came to India through Arabia and the coast-
lands of Iran, and they spread over the greater part of India,
traces of them being found as far east as Eastern Assam among
the Nagas, and remnants of them are found in South India
among a few wild tribes. Negrito groups found their way
into the Andaman Islands, where they are still found as a
distinct people, and into Malaya Peninsula, and further to the
cast in Papua or New Guinea. The Negritos belonged to the
eolithic stage of culture, and were food-gatherers rather than
food-producers. They have to a large extent been absorbed
by other peoples who followed them into India, particularly
the Proto-Australoids. Their culture was rudimentary, and
their language has not survived on the soil of India. In the
domain of culture, they probably had invented the bow, and
evolved a cult of the ficus tree, and formed some belief in an
after-death path to paradise which was guarded by an aveng-
ing demon : this cult of the ficus tree evidently was taken up
by the subsequent races of India.

9. The Proto-Australoids : ‘Austric’ Peoples

The next people to come to India after the Negritos would
appear to be the Proto- Australoids — a medium-sized dolichoce-
phalic race from the Eastern Mediterranean area, who arrived
in India with a palaeolithic culture and who were food-gathereis
like the Negritos. But they seem to have developed a characte-
ristic culture in India, which included primitive agriculture

8

kirata-jana-krti

with the digging stick and the hoe. In India they appear to
have tamed the elephant for the first time. Totemism, and the
earliest beginning of ideas which gave rise to the philosophical
doctrine of transmigration and karma after the advent of the
Aryans, were in all likelihood Proto-Australoid contributions.
Very early branches of the Proto- Australoids passed out of
India into Australia and Melanesia ; and in India they appear
to have spread over the entire country, mixing largely with the
original Negritos. We are not certain about the kind jf
language which was in use among the Proto- Australoids, but
it has been thought exceedingly likely that the speech-family
known as the Austria (i.e., the ‘Southern’ Speech Family) was
associated with the Proto-Australoids and their descendants.
We might say that the Austric people, language and culture
were later phases or developments of the Proto-Australoid
people and their original language and culture.

The Austric Languages of the present day, under which come
the Kol or Munda languages of Centra! and North-eastern
India, and Khasi of Assam, as well as Nicobarese, fall into two
main groups : (1) Austro- Asiatic, which covers a number of
speeches current in India, Burma and Indo-China, i.e., the
mainland of Southern and South-eastern Asia (the Kol or Munda
speeches of India like Santali, Mundari, Ho, Korku, Savara,
Gadaba, etc. ; Nicobarese of the Nicobar Islands ; Khasi of
Assam ; Paloung and Wa of Burma ; Mon or Talaing of South
Burma and South Siam ; Khmer of Cambodia ; Cham of
Cochin China ; Stieng, Bahnar and other speeches of Indo-
China ; and Sakai and Semang of Malaya) ; and (2) Austro -
nesian , which includes (a) Indonesian — Malay, Javanese,
Sundanese, Madurese, Balinese, Sassak, the Celebes speeches,
Tagalog, Ilocano Visayan and other Philippine Islands speeches,
and Malagasy of Madagascar ; (b) Melanesian, in the Islands
of Melanesia, like the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, New
Hebrides, Viti or Fiji, etc. ; and (e) Polynesian — Samoan,
Tongan, Tahitian, Tuamotuan, Marquesan, Maori of New
Zealand, Hawaiian, etc.

The original Austric speech appears to have been charac-
terised in India, and then it spread into Burma and Indo-China,

THE AUSTRIC NISADAS

9

the peninsula of Malaya and the Islands beyond, changing in
the course of its migration involving so many centuries and so
many thousands of miles and contact with various other peoples.

10. The Ancient Austrics of India : Nisadas (Nishadas),

Sabaras, Pulindas, Bhillas, Kollas

The Proto-Australoids of India, after they became modified
into the Primitive Austric-speaking people, came in touch with
the Aryans after these latter had invaded India in times posterior
to 1500 B.C., and the Aryans came to know them as Nisadas,
as Sabarasund as Pulindas , and in post-Christian times as Bhillas
and Kollas (whence we have the modern Indo-Aryan names for
Central Indian tribes of Austric origin — Bluls and Kdls).
Nisdda , or Sabara-Pulinda , or Bhilla-Kolla tribes gradually
became Aryamsed in speech in the Ganges Valley and else-
where, and were fused with the Aryans and also with the
Dravidians. The process is still continuing, in Cliota Nagpur
and elsewhere where Austric speakers are gradually abandoning
theirown speech for the Aryan — Oriya, or Bengali, or some form
of Bihari, Rajasthani or Bundeli. In this way, with the change of
speech and with racial admixture with Dravidian and Aryan
speakers, these Austrics became transformed into the masses of
the Hindu or Indian people of North India. In India, from the
earliest times cultural assimilation went hand in hand with a
large amount of racial fusion, people of the above mentioned
races with various forms of Austric, Dravidian, and Aryan
speech (as well as Mongoloid or Sino-Tibetan speech in Hima-
layan and North-eastern India) intermarrying with each other
— the stronger and better-organised later comers as was natural
taking to wife the daughters of the weaker earlier peoples more
often than giving their own daughters in marriage to the
members of a backward or supposedly ‘inferior’ race.

11. The Dravidian (‘Dramida, Dravida’) Speakers :

‘Dasa-Dasyu’ : their Contribution

Next in order were the Mediterraneans in their three types,
who in all likelihood spoke forms of a Primitive Dravidian

10 KIR AT A - J A N A - K RT l

/

speech, older than the Cen-tamiz or Old Tamil of 1500 to 2000
years ago by some 2 to 3 thousand years. The Dravidian-
speaking people spread from Iran to India, and they were at
first known to the Aryan by two names which appear to be
related, in both Iran and India, viz. Das a and Dasyu (in Iran,
these words changed to Doha and Dahyu). The remains of a
magnificent city-civilisation as at Harappa and Mohen-jo-Daro
and elsewhere in South Punjab and Sindh, with brick buildings
more than one story high and underground masonry drains,
and with a system of writing passing on from the pictogram-
inatic to the syllabic and alphabetic stages, are probably to be
ascribed to these Dravidian-speakeis from the Mediterranean
area. Some of the fundamental things in Biahmamcal
Hinduism, like worship of Siva anti Lima, of Visnu and Sri,
and Yoga philosophy and practices, came from these Dravidian-
speakers. The Aryan-speaking invaders later conquered these
Dravidian-speakcrs in the Punjab and Upper Ganges Valley,
and Aryan settlements took place for the first time in these
tracts, and in Northern Rajputana. There appears to have
been considerable settlement of Dravidian speakers in what
was originally Austric terrain in the Ganges Valley. Large
masses of Dravidian-speakers, like the Austrics, adopted the
Aryans' language, and in the process introduced quite a large
number of their own words into the Aryan language of their
adoption. In this way we have an ever-increasing addition of
'Hravidian and Austric words to the stock of Aryan vocabulary,
as we find in Sanskrit, in Prakrit and in the BhCisd or New
Indo-Aryan languages of the present day.

12. The Western Brachycfphals

The Western Brachycephals, a race of short or broad-
headed people, came from the West, like the Mediterraneans
and the Nordics (the true Aryans). We are not certain about
either the time of their arrival or about the kind of language
they spoke. But it has been surmised that they came after the
Mediterranean peoples (‘Dravidians’), and possibly along with.

ADVENT Of ARYAN-SPEAKING NORDICS 1 f

the Nordics (‘Aryans’), in language, they had probably adopt-
ed the Nordic (Aryan) speech even before they came to India :
but we are not sure in this connexion. They are predominant
in ‘Gujarat, in the Maratha country and in Bengal. We can
with the present state of our knowledge consider them as
members of the Aryan ‘language-culture’ group.

13. The Aryan-speaking Nordics : their Advent into India

The Nordics, the true ‘Aryans’, were the last people to
enter India through her western gates in prc-historic times.
They were tall, fair, straight-nosed, blue-eyed and golden-haired,,
and they called themselves Ary as. The original home of these
Nordics in their pre-Aryan stage of existence (as Primitive
Indo-Europeans) appears to have been in the dry Eurasian
highlands to the south of the Ural Mountains. Here they
tamed the horse, which was their first great original contribu-
tion to human civilisation, and they used to tend c heep and
swine ; but they obtained the cow from Mesopotamia after
30()0 B.C., and later the goat from the Mediterranean area.
They spread west and south and east, and one branch of them,,
the Aryans, crossed the Caucasus Mountains into Northern
Mesopotamia by 2200 B.C., whence some of their tribes after
wanderings spread over several centuries in Iraq, Iran and the
North-western Frontier of India, finally came into India at a.
period not earlier than 1500 B.C. — probably nearer 1200 B.C.
than 1500. They brought with them their own culture and
religion, including their songs in honour of their gods, which
were later on incorporated (in part at least, together with much
later compositions) in the four Veda books (particularly the
Rig and the Atharva Vedas , compiled in all likelihood in the
10th century B.C.) The Aryans spread with their religion and
language from Western Panjab to the east, and arrived in
Northern Bihar at least by 700 B.C., if not earlier. In the
course of their advance to the east along the Ganges Valley,
the fusion of the Aryan-speaking and the non-Aryan (l)ravi-
dian and Austric) speaking peoples was taking place ; and the
want of linguistic unity and cohesion among the pre-Aryan

12

KIRA I A -JAN A-K R II

peoples of India, combined with t lie organising capacity of the
Aryan-speakers, gave to the Aryan speech its great opportunity.

14. The Ancient Hindu Civilisation a Joint Creation of
the Austrics, the Dravidians and the Aryans,
and Later the Mongoloids

Through this racial and cultural admixture, by the time of
Buddha (c. 500 B.C.) a definite and distinctive Hindu civilisa-
tion, composite in its nature and manifold in its expression,
yet bearing nevertheless the common stamp of the Aryan
speech and mentality and organisation, had come into being.
There was an unconscious cultural miscegenation as the inevit-
able corollary of racial admixture : but the thought-leaders and
men of action among this mixed people sought to direct the
trend that their culture was to take. Thus, Krishna Dvaipa-
yana Vyasa and his younger contemporary Krishna Vasudeva
Varshneya. personalities in the Mahabharata Saga (the histori-
cal basis of which goes back to the 10th century B.C.,
according to F. E. Pargiter, Hem Chandra Ray Chaudhuri and
L. D. Barnett, who arrived at the same date by totally different
lines of investigation), stood at the confluence of this cultural
synthesis. Vyasa, ‘the Arranger’, stands at the head of Indian
literature : he was credited with having .compiled the four
Veda books from the mass of hymns to the gods and from the
ritualistic formulae and directions current orally among the
priests; of the Aryan-speaking people; and evidently he was
the first to have started collecting into Purdnas or ‘Repositories
of Ancient Lore’ the current myths, legends and historical tales
and genealogies, doubtless of both Aryan and non-Aryan
origin. Krishna Vasudevu's teachings (we find some reference
to them in the Chdndogya Up an is ad, and the later Bhagavad-
Gitdi as a part of the Mahabharata preserves a great deal of the
views and teachings of the historical Krishna of the 10th cen-
tury B.C.) sought to make a synthesis of the various schools of
philosophy 'which were developing then ; and he accepted
non-Vedic rites (like the later Hindu rite of the pujd which was

HINDU CIVILISATION : A JOINT CREATION

13

very likely of Dravidian origin, in which ‘leaves, flowers, fruits,
water, etc./ are offered to the divinity, in contradistinction to
the Vedic Aryan rite of the horn a in which burnt offerings
consisting of the meat and fat of a slaughtered animal and
barley bread and milk and butter and the spirituous drink
soma are made to the gods) equally with Vedic ones as
permissible.

The Austrics, the Dravidians and the Aryans were the
‘language-culture’ groups which were jointly responsible, con-
sciously or unconsciously, in the evolution of Hindu culture.
The bases were largely furnished by the culture-worlds of the
Austrics and the Dravidians ; and the synthesis and super-
structure were due to the Aryan inspiration and organisation.
The Aryan’s, again, was the dominating voice in this cultural
synthesis, at least apparently or outwardly, as it was his langu-
age (as Sanskrit and the Prakrits) which came to be accepted
as its official vehicle, particularly when it became established
in Northern India. The force of the Aryan’s language was so
great that the non-Aryan bases were, and still are largely
forgotten. We generally do not give any value to the fact that
Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, the father of Aryan literature in
India, was a half-caste or rather a quadroon — his father was a
Brahman or ‘Aryan’ sage and his mother Satyavati was the
daughter of a Dasa or non-Aryan (probably Austric) chief
of a fisher folk, while his grandmother was a Candala woman :
and that Krishna Vasudcva Varshneya was similarly of mixed
origin, his father Vasudeva wasaKshatriya pnneebuthismother
Devaki was the sister of Karrisa, who all on accounts was a non-
Aryan king of Mathura. (See Sumti Kumar Chatterji, ‘Krishna
Dvaipayana Vyasa and Krishna Vasudcva’, in the Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal , Calcutta , Letters , Vol. XV f
No, 7, 1950, pp. 73-87).

In this way, by 500 B.C. the Aryan speech was in full
possession of the field all over Northern India from Eastern
Afghanistan to the Bihar-Benga! frontier, and Hindu culture (in
its original form of Brahmanism and in the later developments
of Jainism and Buddhism) was on the way of its unchecked
development and spread all over India, as the joint creation

14

KiRATA-JANA-KRTI

of the Austric, Dravidian and Aryan speakers of the country :
although on the surface it looked as if the Austric and the
Dravidian culture-worlds were totally suppressed by the Aryan.

;15. The Distribution of the Four Peoples, Nisada, Dramida
(Dravida), Arya, and Kirata : and the Importance of

THE ARYAN-SPEAKERS AS A ‘HERRENVOLK’

It was when the bases of the distinctive Hindu or Austric-
TDravidian-Aryan culture were being laid that another racial
(or, rather, linguistic-cultural) group, the Mongoloid or Sino-
Tibetan, made its presence felt in the country. The Austric-
vking Nisddas , and the Dravidian-speaking Ddsa- Dasyus —
these two groups were most in evidence throughout the greater
part of India. There were, and there still are, solid blocs of
Dravidian-speakers in Western and Southern India : and proto-
Australoid (Nifdda) elements are strong among them. The
riverain tracts of North India were originally probably inhabit-
ed by Austro-Asiatic (Austric-speaking) tribes. But Dravidian
penetration into Austric tracts appears to have been both
extensive and deep. The Burushaski speech, of unknown
.affinity, has been connected with the Caucasian speeches on
the one hand, and with the Austric on the other ; and if the
latter affiliation is correct, then that would show that Kashmir
and part of North-western India at any rate were also settled
in by Austric speakers. In a similar way, the ‘pronominaiised’
Himalayan Mongoloid speeches (like Kanawari or Kanuri,
Lahuli, Dhimal, Limbu, Rai, etc.) show the presence of Austric-
speaking tribes in the sub-Himalayan tracts.

The Aryan-speakcrs were concentrated in the North-west —
in North Panjab and the northern part of the North-west
Frontier Province and in Eastern Afghanistan, and probably
also in Kashmir. But for the other parts of India they formed
a most potent leaven. There was not (except in some special
cases) wholesale migrations of Aryan-speaking groups, parti-
cularly of the long-headed blue-eyed Nordic Aryans— into the
different parts of India after they had settled down in what

AN ARYAN ‘HERRENVOLK 1 *. MONGOLOIDS

15

formed their nidus or centre of expansion in the Panjab (and
probably also Western United Provinces). Their expansion
would appear to have taken place m the shape of small but
very powerful bands of intellectual and military aristocrats —
Brahman sages and Kshatriya princes — who also relegated to
themselves the functions of a ruling and guiding people, and
gave the specifically Hindu or Brahmanic tone to the new
culture that was taking shape and expanding over India. It has
to be admited that the role of a Herrenvolk , a controlling and
leading people, has been played by certain social elements
which were largely Aryan (or mixed Aryan and Dravidian)
from the Panjab and North-western India in general, during the
formative period of Hindu civilisation and its early expansion.
The domination of the Deccan by the Indian Musalmans
hailing from the Panjab and Western United Provinces, and of
Muslim Eastern Bengal by Musalmans from Eastern United
Provinces, during the late medieval period of Indian history,
was just a continuation of a process of language-culture drift
which began during the first half of the first millennium B.C.

16 . The Mongoloid Elements in Himalayan and
North-eastern India

If the Nordics (and with them the Western Brachycephals)

■ of \ryan speech were so much in evidence in North-western
India and in the Western part of the Ganges Valley, and the
Dravidian-speakcrs were strong in Western and Southern India,
and in Northern India as well as, with the Austric-speakers
presenting an equally important group (at least numerically)
throughout the riverain tracts of North India and in the Central
Indian hills and jungles, right up to the Burma frontier, and
even beyond (in South Burma and Indo-China with its Austric
Mon-Khmer peoples), the Mongoloids formed a most note-
worthy (though culturally far less effective) element in the
population of North-eastern and Eastern India. As has been
said before, they were established in Assam and North and
East Bengal, in North Bihar, and in sub-Himalayan India,
mostly Nepal. The history of the arrival into India of ti e

16

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

various Mongoloid groups speaking dialects of the Sino-
Tibetan speech-family is not known, nor have all the various
languages and dialects in the family been satisfactorily classified.
It would appear that their presence in India was noted by the
10th century B.C., when the Veda books were compiled. The
composite Hindu (i.e., Austric-Dravidian-Aryan, or Indo-
Gangetic) civilisation reached the Mongoloid peoples of
Northern and North-eastern mountains and plains from about
that date. Outwardly the result of their participation in the
history and culture of India in the areas where they had
established themselves has been just their assimilation and
absorption, in civilisation and language, accompanied by
mixture in blood with the other peoples. Where there has
een no occasion or opportunity of racial intermixture with
the mixed Austric-Dravidian-Aryan (or pure Aryan, pure
Dravidian and pure Austric) peoples, the Mongoloid types have
remained unaltered, although the language may have gone and
the culture is that of the Brahmanical Hindu (or, in some cases,
as for instance among the Newars of Nepal, of the Indian
Buddhist of early times), with a leaven of the Indian Musalman
in North and East Bengal.

17. Study of the non-Aryan Elements (Austric and
Dravidian) in Indian Civilisation

In the study of the origins of the composite Hinnu civilisa-
tion of ancient and medieval India, the elements contributed
by the various ‘language-culture’ groups of diverse race — the
Austric, the Dravidian and the Aryan speakers — have already
attracted the attention of scholars. First the Dravidian, and
then after a long number of decades the Austric elements in
the Aryan language through the centuries began to be studied.
From this, it was a natural corollary to deduce the various
venues of Dravidian and Austric influence on the life, the
culture and the religion of Hindu India of ancient and medieval
times. Quite a number of unexpected things are coming to
light through these linguistic studies proceeding hand in hand
with historical, anthropological and ethnological enquiries*

‘NON-ARYAN* ELEMENTS IN INDIA

17

We are now realising how some of the fundamental things in
early Indian (Hindu) life and thought are inheritances from the
worlds of the Austria and the Dravidian, although they have
been stated in the language of the Aryan, and have been
profoundly modified in this process as well as in their evolution.
The enquiry into the Austric, Dravidian and Aryan bases of
our Indian civilisation has thus taken up a vital importance.
Our Austric and Dravidian ancestors are once again coming to
their own. We are now realising how remarkable has been
the synthesis of these entirely diverse culture* worlds through
the genius of the thought-leaders of a mixed people — thought-
leaders who were of Aryan speech no doubt, but had a mixed
inheritance in blood and mental attitude and spiritual quality
— i e., of the Brahmans and Kshatriyas and Vaisyas of the
early Hindu age, in origin pure y Aryan or mixed Aryan, and
sometimes purely non-Aryan. The greatest of such thought-
leaders, as we have seen before, were Krishna Dvaipayana
Vyasa and Krishna Vasiideva Varshneya, who were of mixed
origin : and there are records of others also.

Austric and Dravidian elements in Hindu or Brahmanica!
civilisation from the Vedic period onwards have been discussed
by a number of scholars and writers, and a resume of their
work up to 1935 will be found in the Bibliographie Analytique
des Travaux relcitifs aux Elements an-Aryens dans la Civilisation
et les Langues de VInde (by Constantin Regamey of Warsaw, in
the ‘Bulletin del’ficole Franraise de rExtrcme-Orient’, Vo!, 34,
1935, pp. 429-566). The (ol lowing studies may also be men-
tioned : Non- Aryan Elements in Jndo- Aryan (by S. K. Chatterji,
in the Journal of the Greater Indian Society, Vol. Ill, 1936,
No. 1, pp. 43-49) ; Prototypes of Siva in Western India (by
H. C. Ray Chaudhuri, in the D. R. Bhandarkar Volume ,
Calcutta, 1940, pp. 301-30/'); Some Etymological Notes (by
S. K. Chatterji, in the Denison Ross Volume , Poona, pp. 68-74);
India and Polynesia . Austric Bases of Indian Civilisation and
Thought (by S. K. Chatterji, in the Bhdrata-Kdumudi , Studies
in Indolcgy in honour of Dr. Radiiakumud Mookerjee,
Allahabad. 1945, pp. 193-208); Buddhist Survivals in Bengal
(by S. K. Chatterji, in the B. C Law Volume , Part I, Calcutta,

2 nsi ASIATIC SOCIETY CALCUTTA

1 0 RIRATA-JANA-KRTI

1945, pp. 75 -27) ; and the papers by T. Burrow on the Dra-
vidian Elements in Sanskrit and other Indo-Aryan languages
(in the ‘Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies’, 1948, and
‘Transactions of the Philological Society of London/ 1948).

18 . Study of the Mongoloid Contribution so far

NEGLECTED : REASONS FOR THIS NEGLECT

An appraisement of the rote of the Mongoloid peoples in
the development of the composite Hindu or Indian culture, the
peculiar line of development of this culture in its expansion in
North-eastern and Eastern India through Mongoloid contact
or participation — should be looked upon as an important line
of enquiry in tracing the history of Inoian civilisation. Yet
so far as I know this has not been viewed in its proper perspec-
tive by any scholar (except in some works on Nepal) : and
there are reasons for this neglect. The part played by the
Mongoloid peoples was confined to the distant eastern and
northern frontiers of India — in Central and Eastern Nepal, in
North Bihar, in North and East Bengal and in Assam. These
are rather far removed from the hub of Indian civilisation and
history — in Western India, in the Upper Ganges Valley, in the
Deccan and in the Tamil land. The Mongoloid elements,
again, because of their late arrival (they were possibly later
than even the Aryans), could not penetrate far into the interior
plains of India, and were not in a position to leaven the whole
of India, so to say, in the way that the Austrics, the Dravidians
and the Aryans did. No personality of proved Mongoloid
origin (although some scholars have suspected it to be so in
tome cases) could achieve anything of pan-Indian importance
in very early times —although in later periods things of pan-
Indian significance were done or contemplated by members ot
this race. Their work remained confined to their restricted
spheres of operation only. Moreover, as they arrived late in
the Indian scene, their greatest periods were also late —after
the 14th century A D., when the Turk and Afghan, the Rajput
and the North Indian Mus^lman, the Oriya and the Bengali,

NEGLECT OF TIIE MONGOLOID CONTRIBUTION

19

the Maratha and the Kannadiga, and the Telugu and the
Tamilian, were engaged in a sanguinary drama of war and
peace and in the work of cultural endeavour and assimilation
in which the Newar and the Kiranti of Nepal, the Bodo of
North and East Bengal and Assam, and the Ahom of Assam,
and the Jaintia of the Khasi Hills (the last named people bting
Mongoloid by race but Austric by speech) had no place. Their
earlier history was already obscure at that time, and still
remains obscure. We can see how they were being absorbed
within the folds of Hinduism, long after the beginning of the
first millennium after Christ ; and we can now just make some
guessess about where they were and what they were doing
prior to 1000 A.D. All this has made for the comparative
neglect of this chapter of Indian history and civilisation. Yet
nothing shows better the wonderful expanding and absorbing
power of Brahmanical Hinduism, even during the 1 5th-18th
centuries, than the way in .which the Mongoloid elements
were made, under its inspiration, to play their great part, and
to contribute what they could to the sum-total of Hindu life
and culture.

Then, again, at the present day they are numerically
insignificant — the speakers of the Sino-Tibetan languages for
the whole of undivided India (according to the Census of 1931)
do n«n number more than 4 millions in a population of 389
millions (a percentage of even less than one in the entire popu-
lation — 0*85% only). This numerical insignificance, combined
with their general cultural backwardness, has been responsible
to a large extent for the want of interest in their history and
culture.

Most of the basic things in Hindu religion, including myth,
legend, ritual and philosophy, are derived from the Auitrics
and Dravidians, and Aryans. The Mongoloid contribution is
not so extensive or deep, but nevertheless it is there, in the
history and life and culture of Nepal, of North and East Bengal
and of Assam ; and through Brahmanical Hinduism this
contribution has got to some extent a pan-Indian implication
as well. The impact of a composite Brahmanism (and of
medieval Buddhism) on the Mongoloid peoples has i(s special

20

KlRA i A-JAN A-RR TI

appeal for the student of Indian religion and culture as a
whole.

19. The Mongoloid Tribes in India : Mongoloids
outsjdf. India

The story of the advent of the Mongoloid peoples into
India, as far as it can be reconstructed, may be briefly stated,
and an account of the various Mongoloid groups which had
to do with India may also be briefly noted. A good resume
of the whole history (or, rather, of the reconstruction of a
possible sequence of tribal movements) will be found in Sir
George Abraham Grierson's Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. I,
Introduction ( J 927, pp. 40fT.). The Mongoloid tribes represent
at least three distinct physical types — the primitive long-headed
Mongoloids, who are found in the sub-Himalayan tracts, in
Nepal and mostly in Assam ; the less primitive and more
advanced short-headed Mongoloids, who are found mostly in
Burma and have expanded from Burma through Arakan into
Chittagong ; and finally the Tibcto-Mongoloids, who are fairly
tall and have lighter skins and appear to be the most highly
developed type of the Mongoloids who came to India. These
Tibeto-Mongoloids are the linguistically characterised Tibetans
and their various off-shoots who arrived in India through the
Himalayas, in comparatively recent times, spreading from
Bhotan and Sikkim to Ladakh and Baltistan.

With the single exception of the Khasis and the connected.
Jaiutias (Syntengs) of Assam, the Mongoloid peoples who are
found in India are all speakers of languages and dialcts belong-
ing to the Sino-Tibetan or Tibeto-Chinese speech family. Other
language families which are also current among peoples of
Mongoloid origin outside India are (l) the Ural-Altaic (in its
two branches (a) the Ural or Finno-Ugrian or Ugrian, consist
ing of Magyar or Hungarian, Finn, Esth, Lapp, and Vogul,
Ostyak, Sirven, Mordvin, Cheremis, etc., of Soviet Russia *
and (b) the Altaic, under which come Turki in its various
forms, mainly Western Turki or Osmanli and Eastern Turki
or Chagatai, besides Yakut, and Mongol and Manchu) ;
(2) the I/yperborean or North-east Asiatic Mongoloid speeches

SINO-TIBTEAN MONGOLOID EXPANSION

21

like Gilyak, Chukchi, Yukhaghir, and Kamchadal ol' Kam*
chatka ; and (3) the Ainu- Korean- Japanese group. The Mongo-
loid peoples who passed on to America from Siberia into
Alaska crossing the Behring Strait in pre-historic times now
speak the various languages and dialects of the two Americas
over which they spread, and these American Indian languages
fall into a number of families, some of which like those of
Mexico and Central as well as Andean America (Peru, etc.)
became vehicles of high types of civilisations. But we are not
concerned with these in the present context : only we should
recall that the Mongoloid peoples in America, as in Mexico,
Central America and Peru, produced, quite independently of
other peoples, civilisations of an original and very advanced
type which can compare favourably with the great civilisations
of the old world, one of which was the exclusive creation of
the Mongoloid Chinese people.

The Eskimos spread over Greenland and the northern parts
of North America are another Mongoloid people whose langu-
age also forms a distinct class by itself.

20. Sino-Tibetan Mongoloid Expansion

The area of characterisation for the primitive Sino-Tibetan
speech appears to have been North-western China between the
head-waters of the Huang Ho and the Yang-tsze Kiang rivers.
Possibly very early off-shoots of the Proto-Sino-Tibetan speak-
ing Mongoloids, before the language was fully characterised,
came down to South China and Burma, and from them were
descended the Man and Miao-tsze peoples of South China and
the Karens of Burma — tribes or peoples which are Mongoloid
in race but whose speech now appears to be rather* distinct
from other members of the Sino-Tibetan family.

In Burma and Indo-China lived speakers of Austric
(Austro-Asiatic) languages, who were largely of the Proto-
Australoid race from India. A mixture of these Proto-
Australoids with Mongoloids in very early times in Burma
.and Indo-China is very likely, this mixture producing the

22

kirata-jana-krti

ancient Rmcfl (Rman) or Mon people of Central and Southern
Burma, the Paloungs and Was of Upper Burma, as well as the
Khmcrs, the Chams, the Stieng, the Bahnar and other Austria
or Austro-Asiatic speakers of Siam and Indo-China. The
Karens, now numbering over a million, are Mongoloids from
the North who were established in their present area of occu-
pation in the hills between the Irrawaddy, the Sal win and the
Menam rivers, by t he 6th century A.D.

21. The Sino-Tibetan Speeches

Mongoloid tribes from Western China speaking forms of
Sino-Tibetan speech appear to have been pushing south and
west from their original homeland from pre-historic times, but
certain large-scale movements of which we have faint inklings
seem to have begun in the early part of the first millennium
B.C. Linguistically, the Sino-Tibetan languages of the present
day have been classified into two groups or branches — (I)
Tibeto-Burman, and (II) Siarnese-Chinese.

The former includes the following : (u) Tibetan and its

various dialects as current over a wide tract from Pakistan in
the west to Khams in the east (Ladakhi, Chang and 0 or
Central Tibetan speech, Kham or Eastern Tibetan, and Den-
jong-ke or Sikkimese Tibetan, as well as Lho-ke or Bhutanese) ;
(b) the Himalayan Group of Dialects spoken on the Indian side
of the Himalayas, in Nepal and Sikkim — e.g. Newari, Magar,
Gurung, Murmi, Sunwari, Kiranti, Lepcha or Rong, and Toto
— which are pure Tibeto-Burman ; (c) the ‘Pronominalised’
Himalayan Dialects of Tibeto-Burman, which show some
grammatical modification through influence of the Austria
speeches : these fall in two groups, a Western (Kanawari
spoken near Simla, Lahuli and 9 other dialects current in the
Eastern Panjab Himalayas), and an Eastern (current in Nepal,
like Dhimal, Thami, Limbu, Yakha, Khambu, Rai, Vayu,
etc.); (d) the North Assam group of Tibeto-Burman speeches.
— Aka or Hrusso, Miri, Abor, Dafla and Mishmi ; (e) t lie

THE SINO-TIBETAN SPEECHES

23

Assam-Burmese group — Tibeto-Burman speeches of North and
East Bengal, Assam and Burma ; these include - (i) the Bodo
speeches- Bodo, Mech, Rabha, Garo, Kachari and Tipra and
a few more ; (ii) the Naga dialects — Ao, Angami, Serna,
Tangkhul, Songtem, Kanyak, Lotha, Mao, and Kabui etc. ;

(iii) the Kuki-Chin speeches of Manipur, Tripura and the
Lushei Hills, as well as Burma, the most important of which
is Meithei or Manipuri, which is quite an advanced literary
speech — the most important language of the family in Assam ;

(iv) the Kachin-Lolo group of Northern Burman ; and finally

(v) the Myamma or Burmese, including its various dialects.

The Siamcse-Chinesc branch of Sino-Tibetan includes on

the one hand Chinese in its various dialects or provincial forms
as current at the present day, all derived from a single un-
divided Chinese speech which was spoken till about 600 A.D.
— a form of Northern Chinese now being accepted as the
Standard or ‘National' form of jhe speech ; and on the other
hand Siamese and its connected speeches or dialects, like Dai
or Thai, i.e. Siamese proper, and Lao, Shan (Rham), Khamti
and Ahom, of which Khamti alone is found within the fron-
tiers of India, and Ahom, which was the language of the Shan
conquerors of Assam who came to the country early in the
13th century and which continued to be spoken among the
Ahoms of Assam right down to the 18th century, is now
extinct.

(Robert Shafer has suggested indicating the various branches
within the Sino-Tibetan family by means of the suffix *ic\ and
the various tribal or geographical names referring to individual
speeches or speech-groups within a branch by means of the
affix -ish, following the practice obtaining to some extent in
the classification of the Indo-European languages in English,
e.g., Celtic , Italic , Germanic , Hellenic , Slavic , Baltic , Indie
branches and Irish, Spanish , Polish , etc. languages. Bodic in
the above scheme would therefore mean the Bod or Tibetan
branch, and Bodish would indicate the Tibetan speech ; so
Burmic — the entire Burman group, and Burmish the Burmese
speech ; quite a consistent and reasonable system of nomen-
clature, only it would be difficult to make it generally accepted.)

22. Tabular Representation of the Sino-Tibetan Languages (following the ‘Linguistic SuRvi y o r India )

Sino-Tibetan (or Tibeto-Chinese) Speech Family

24

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

Detailed Indication of the Speeches in the Two Branches of Sino-Tibetan.

(1) Tibeto-Burman

THE SINO-TIBETAN SPEECHES

25

cr : o

3 o __
-3

*5 «> JD £

”^0^5 a

*

•T3 O u
£ »
a. -^ X)

-§s p s

z'ise

26

K I RATA-; AN A -KRTl

23. TiiE'Mongoloids in Ancient India : the Kiratas

Wc are not concerned in India with the fortunes of the
Chinese, the Man and Karen and the Thai or Siamese groups
of the Mongoloid peoples, excepting the case of a group
connected with the Siamese, the Ahoms, who acquired the
status of the ruling tribe in Assam for a number of centuries.

The Tibeto-Burman groups of the Sino-Tibetan speaking
tribes would appear to have formed an area of dispersion in
sometract tothe west and north of Tibet (the present-day Chinese
province of Si-Kiang), from where they began to spread east and
south. In a similar way, the Chinese province of Yun-nan, to
the east of Assam and Burma, formed the nidus of the Thai
(Dai) or Siamese tribes for their southward trek into Siam and
Indo-China (Viet-nam). It seems quite probable that long before
1000 B.C. some of these early Tibeto-Burmans had penetrated
within the frontiers of India, either along the southern slopes
of the Himalayas, through Assam (and established themselves
in the sub-Himalayan tracts as far west as Garhwal and
Kumaon), or by way of Tibet, going up the Tsangpo or
Brahmaputra and then crossing the Himalayan barrier into
Nepal and Garhwal-Kumaon.

It is the consensus of opinion among Indologists that in
Sanskrit the term Kirdta indicated the wild non-Aryan tribes
living in the mountains, particularly the Himalayas and in the
North-eastern areas of India, who were Mongoloid in origin.
These Kiratas were connected with the Cinas or the Chinese,
the Bhotas or the Tibetans, and other Mongoloid peoples.
They were distinguished from the wild or primitive tribes of
Austric origin who were known specifically as Nisddas , Sabaras ,
Pulindas , Bhillas and Kolias. The Mongoloid racial affinities
of the Kiratas were proposed by Sylvain Levi who first took
up the question (in his work on Nepal. Vol. II, Paris, 1905,
pp. 75IT), and who quoted passages from the Mahdbhdrata
and other texts indicating the opinion of the ancient Hindu
writers about the appearance and ways and connexions of this
people, all of which enable us to conclude that they were a
Mongoloid people. Kasten Ronnow published a long mono-
graph on the Kiratas (Kirdta, po. 90-169 of Le Monde Oriental

27

THE KIRAtAs IN VEDIC LITERATURE

Vdl. XXX, 1936, Uppsala) in which the question has been dis-
cussed in considerable detail and with a much wider back-
ground, and the Mongoloid affinities of some at least of the
Kiratas are given by him (cf. pp. 93, 100, 115, 123 of the above
article), despite a certain amount of speculation about other
connexions of the Kiratas (e.g. pp. 138, 145, 153, etc.).

24. The Kiratas fn Vedic Literature

The name Kirata \ s for the first time found in the Yajurveda
{Sukia Yajurveda , Vdjasaneyi Samhitd, XXX, 16 ; also Kr$na
Yajurveda , Taittiriya Brahmana , III, 4, 12, 1). In connexion
with the Purusa-tnedha or ‘Man-offering' sacrifice, where a list
of all kinds of human beings and animals symbolically or
figuratively offered to the gods as sacrifice is given, wc find the
following passage

guhabhyah Kir at am ; sanuhh ) 6 Jambhakam ; parvatebhyah
Kimpurufcim

‘A Kirata, for the caves ; a Jambhaka (long-toothed man ?)
for the slopes ; a Kimpuru$a (an ugly man, a wild man, an
ape ?) for the mountains.’

Then in the Atharvaveda (X, 4, 14) we have a reference to
a Kirata girl ( Kdiratikd ) who digs for a herbal remedy on the
ridges of the mountains : —

Kdiratikd kurnarikd saka khanati bhesajam :
hirariyayibhir abhribhir girinam upci sdnu$u.

‘The young maid of Kirata race, a little damsel, digs the drug :

Digs it with shovels wrought of gold on the high ridges

of the hills.’

( T> andution by R. T. Griffith.)

Macdonell and Keith have the following note in their
Vedic Index on Kirata : 1 Kirata is a name applied to a people
living in the caves of the mountains, as appears dearly from the
dedication of the Kirata to the caves {guild) in the Vdjasaneyi
Sarphitd (also Taittiriya Brahmana), ’and from the reference in
the Atharvaveda to a Kirata girl ( kdiratikd ), who digs a remedy
on the ridges of the mountains. Later the people called

28 K I R A T A - J A N A - K R T I

Kirdtas were located in Eastern Nepal, but the name seems tc
have been applied to any hill folk, no doubt aborigines, though
the Mdnava Dharma-sdstra regards them as degraded Ksatriyas
(ref. X, 44)’. When a non-Aryan or foreign people is described
in an old Indian text as being of degraded Kshatriya origin,
there is always an implication that they were, to some extent
at least, advanced in civilisation or military organisation, and
as such could not be dismissed as utter barbarians.

25. The Meanings of the Word ‘Kirata’, and New Indo-
Aryan Words connected with it

The traditional explanations of the word Kirata do not help
us in finding its origin. These explanations are : ‘those who
move — atanti — along the mountain sides, or in bad, dirty
places, kira’ ; ‘those who move abput talking gibberish, kira or
kila' ; and Kastcn Ronnow in his monograph on the Kirdtas ,
quotes from Lehot in his edition of the Ratndvali the following:
kiram atati yah ‘qui habite les frontiers’ (p. 91, op. cit.). The
derivation and connexions of the word Kirata proposed by
Ronnow do not appear convincing.

It is quite likely that the name is but a Sanskritisation of
sc.ne Sino-Tibetan tribal name, and some scholars have identi-
fied the name with that of the Kirdntis , a Tibeto-Burman people
living in East Nepal, which is quite possible.

Following traditional views about the Kirata country,
Gopal Chandra Praharaj in his Oriya Lexicon (Cuttack, 1932,
Vol. II) places it in Northern India ; and Jnanendra Mohan
Das in his Bengali Dictionary (second edition, Calcutta, 1938)
identifies it with the Eastern Himalayan tracts, including
Sikkim and Bhutan, and Manipur and other adjacent tracts,
which are exactly lands of Mongoloid settlement in India.

There are certain words current in New Indo-Aryan langu-
ages which are connected with the racial name Kirata. In
Bengali, we have the word Kirdtj Kiret, which is used disparag-
ingly of a man who is abnormally miserly or close-fisted, cruel
or heartless (particularly cf a money-lender in extorting his

‘kirata’ in new indo-aryan

29

dues from poor debtors). This would appear to have come
from a pejorative employment of the tribal name (* Kirata-vrtta
— ‘those who behave like Kirdtas , cruel and stingy people'
’>*Kirda-\atta'>* KirdvataZ> Kirdt, Kirct). Kirdd is common
enough as a caste name in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh, and Berar in Maharashtra, in the sense of
‘a (Hindu) merchant'. It also means ‘a corn-chandler', and
figuratively it is used to mean ‘a robber* ; and ‘a dalesman, a
forester* are two other senses of the vvoid in the Panjab (cf.
Kasten Ronnow, Kirata , pp. 142, 143). It is also to be noted
that in the Western Punjab, the Hindus who were in a minority
were contemptuously referred to by their Muhammadan neigh-
bours as Kirdd . This form of the word, Kirdd , as opposed to
the Bengali Kirdt/Kirct , may come from a contemptuous expre-
ssion * Kirata-ta (>*Kirda-da> Kirdd), and originally implied a
person who was like a bad Kirata , a bad man, a robber, or
swindler, facetiously applied* to merchants, moneylenders and
others supposed to be eager only to make money. The name
Kirata as that of an uncouth non-Aryan tribe evidently came
to acquire some son of stigma among Aryan-speakeis. Simi-
larly, the tribial name for some non-Aryan peoples who resist-
ed Aryan advance or conquest came to be used in new senses
in the Aryan language : Dcisa came to mean ‘slave*, Dasyu ‘a
robber’, Nisdda ‘a man of a low mentality*, Canddla ‘a cruel
man’, Kolia or Kola ‘a pig’ ; and D. R. Bhandarkar suggested
that the Sanskrit cdura and Prakrit cor a ‘thief’ is but an abusive
employment of the South Indian Tamil tribal name Coza , Cola
or ‘Cholah We may recall the degradation in sense of the natio-
nal name Slav in German and English, in the sense of a ‘slav ■
Cf. Indio in South America to mean ‘a servant*, and of Hindu
in Persian to mean ‘black*. This stigma came to be applied
partially at least to the name Kirata as early as the age of the
Brahmanas, c. 8lh-7th centuries B C. (cf. the term Kildla in
Macdonell and Keith’s Vcd : Index ) Compare also the Sans-
krit word Kirdta-tikta for ‘a \ery bitter plant used medicinally' ;
this occurred in Prakrit as *Lilaa-itta or Cirda-itta, in Old
Bengali :i is fcia.d m the 1 2 u i century as Cirdyita. and in
Modern Bengali it is Cirdtd or Ciretd : the name may mean

30

K1RATA-JANA-KRTI

either a drug obtained from the Kiratas (cf. the Atharvavida
passage quoted before in p. 27), or a drug which is 'bitter or vile
like a Kira t a'.

But the term Kirata was not wholly of contempt, although
occasionally it might be so used. We should recall that as
early as the Mahabhdrata we And the legend of Siva Mahadeva,
the Great God, taking the guise of a KirSta, with UmS with
him as a Kirata woman, to test Arjuna when he i\as practising
religious penance in the Himalayas : a legend which may have
its germs in the following verse of the Sata-rudriya section of
the White Yajurveda (XVI, 7) :

Asau yd'vasarpati nila-grivo vildhitah |

utainarp gopa adrsrann adrsrann udahdryah : sa dfffd

mfdaydti nab II

‘May he who glides away, whose neck is azure, and whose
hue is red, he whom the herdsmen, whom the girls who carry
water have beheld, may he when seen be kind to us.’ (Trans,
by Ralph T. Griffith, Benares, 1899.)

And this is quite a high exaltation of the status of the non-
Aryan hill people, the Kiratas, when the Supreme God with
his consort was made to take up the guise of a Kirata moun-
taineer and his wife.

26. The Kiratas in the Mahabharta and Other
Ancient Works

From the Yajurveda onwards, th b mountain regions of
North and North-eastern India- -the Himalayas particularly,
are well attested as the abode of the Kiratas. In the Maha -
bhdrata, the Kiratas are dwellers in the Himalayan regions,
particularly in the Eastern Himalayas. Bhima in his conquer-
ing tour meets the Kiratas in the east after living the Videha
country : Cf. Sabhaparvan, 26, 32 : —

Vuidehasthas tu Kaunteya fndra-parvatam antikat :
Kirdtddhipatin sapta vyajayat tatra Paridavaft ||

( Then the Pandava hero, O son of Kunti, coming to the
Vaidclut land close to Indra Mountains, defeated the seven
Kirata rulers’.)

‘kirata’ in the mahabharata

31

They are found also in the North-west when Nakula mar-
ches in that direction. The following verses from the Sabha-
parvan of the Mahabharata ( Sabhd , 52, 8-10: quoted by
Kaliprasanna Sen, Vidyabhushana, in his edition of the Rdja-
rndld, Tripura Chronicle, Vol. I, p. 169) are clear about the
home of the Kiratas, and make mention of some of their
ways : —

ye pardrdhe ca Himavatali surySdaya-girau rtf pah,

Karufc ca samudrdnte Lauhityam abhitaica yS II
phala-muldsand ye ca Kiratas carma-vasasah
krura-sastrah kriira-krtas tarri&ca pa&yamy aham prabhd ||
candandguru-kdffhdnam bharan kdliyakasya ca.
carma-ratna-suYarndnam gandhdnah ediva rafayafi ||
‘Those kings who arc on the other half of the Himalayas
and in the mountains of the east (Sun-rise mountain) in Karu$a
bv the end (edge) of the sea, and beside the Lauhitya (Luhit
or Upper Brahmaputra river), those who are moreover Kiratas
living on fruits and roots, clad in skins, fierce with their
weapons, cruel in their deeds, them I saw, O Lord : and loads
of sandal and agallochum wood, and of black (?) pepper, and
masses of skins and gems and gold and of aromatic shrubs.’
(For Kdrufe ca samudrdnte there is a variant reading vdrifena
samudrdnte : Dr. Moti Chandra in his Geographical and Econo-
mic Studies in the Mahabharata : Updyana Parva, U.P. Histori-
cal Society, Lucknow, 1945, pp. 84-85, seeks to identify this
Varifa with Barisal District in East Bengal, which is by the
sea : an identification which is quite likely to be correct.)

In the famous episode of Siva meeting Arjuna as a Kirata,
accompanied by Uma also in the guise of Sabarl or a Kirata
woman, in the Himalaya regions, when Arjuna went there to
propitiate Siva by his austerities with a view to obtain the boon
of the Pa&upata weapons from the Great God himself, as
narrated in the Kirata-parvan section of the Vana-parvan of the
Mahabharata, a definite indication of what the Kirata people
were like is given. They were ‘gold-like’, i.c., yellow in colour
(and not dark or black like the Dasas and Dasyus and the
Nijadas and other pre-Aryan peoples of the plains). Cf. the
following passages : —

32

K I R A T A - J A X A - K RTI

Kairdtam vC\sam dsthdya kdric ana-dr uma-sanmbham
‘Taking up a Kirata resemblance, like unto a tree of gold
(IV, 35, 2} ;

da Jar sat ha tato jisnuh purusatp kdiicana-prabham
‘Then the Victorious One (Arjuna) saw a Man, shining Vkc
gold’ (IV, 35, 17) ;

na {yam asmin vane ghdre bib fie si kanaka prabha
‘O thou that art shining like gold (addressing Si a in the
form of Kirata), dost thou not fear in this ten iblc orest?
(IV, 35, 18).

We have also mention in the Harivatyisa (10, 24S) of the name
Kira ti as an epithet of Durga or Lima, as being “worshipped
by hosts of robbers'’ (quoted by M. Bloomfield in ti e American
Journal of Philology, Vol. XLVII, 3, Whole Number )S7, p. 220
foot-note).

In the Mahdbhdrata also, as Sylvain Levi has shewn (in his
work on Nepal, referred to above), the Kiratas are mostly
associated with foreign peoples, like the Yuvanas, the £akas
and the Pallavas, who belong to the west ; but especially with
the Cinas or the Chinese. Bhagadatta, the king of Pragjyotisa
or Western Assam who took part in the Kurukshetra battle,
was definitely described as a ruler over Mltcchas or non-Hindu
barbarians : Prdgjydtisddhipah sard mlecchdndtn adhipo ball , ‘the
powerful hero, the lord of Pragjyotisa, lord of the Mlccchas ’ ;
and in the Sabhd-parvan (26, -9, quoted in the Raja- mala, I,
p, 48) we find —

sa Kirdtdisca Cindisca \rlah Prdgjybtisd bhavat ,

anydisca bahubhir yodhciih sugar dnupu-\dsibhih |j
‘The Pragjyotisa (king) was the; , surrounded by Kiratas
and Cinas (Chinese) and with many other warriors dwelling by
the coast of the sea,'

Elsewhere (in Stri-panan, 23), Bhagadatta is described as
having his scat among hills (esa sdildlayo rdjd Bhagadattah
prctdpaxun ‘here is the mighty king Bhagadatta whose home is
in the hills'). The yellow colour of the Kiratas and of their
allies or kinsmen the Cinas is emphasised elsewhere in the
Mahdbharuia : e.g. in the arnny of Bhagadatta, The Cinu and
Kirata soldiers appeared to be in gold ; their troops had the

T HE KIRATAS IN THE MAHaBHARATA & RaMAYANA

33

appearance of a forest of Karnikdras (with yellow flowers)’

( Mahdbhdrata , V. 584, A.SB. edition, II, 1836 : Bhagadatto
mahipdlah scndm aksduhinim daddu : tasya Clndih Kirdtaisca
kdncandir iva samvptam , babhdu balam anddhrsyam karnikdra-
xanarn yathd .)

The Rdmdyana also mentions the golden colour of the
Kiratas : thus,

Kir at as ca tiksna-cudusca hcmdbhdh priya-dursandh ,
ant ar-j ala- card gliordi nara-vydghrd iti srutdh II
( Ki$kindhyd-Kdnda , 40, 27, 28, quoted by N. N. Vasu in
Social History of Kama r up d, Calcutta, 1922, p. 92.)

‘The Kiratas, with hair done in pointed top-knots, pleasant
to look upon, shifting like gold, able to move under water,
terrible, veritable tiger-men, so are they famed.*

Elsewhere, the Rdmdyana speaks of other Kiratas who lived
by the sea and were ferocious, and ate raw fish.

The Kiratas dwelling in the hills and mountains of the east
were supposed to be rich in gold and silver and gems they
obtained from these mountains, and they were experts in
making cloth of various kinds : cf. the following passage from
the Sabhd-parvan of the Mahdbhdrata (30, 26-28) : —
vasu tebfiya updddya Lduhityam ago mad ball :
sa sarvdn mleccha-nrpatln sdgardnupa-xdsinah
karam dhdraydmdsa rat nan i vividhdni ca II
candandguru-vastrdni mani-mduktika-kambalam ,
kdncancun raj at an ediva xidrumapi ca mahdbalam ||

‘The powerful warrior receiving wealth from them went to
the Lauhitya river. He (was victorious over) all the Mleccha
kings dwelling by the shore of the sea, and obtained tributes
from them— gems of various sort, sandal-wood, agallochum,
cloths, gems (rubies), pearls, and blankets, gold, silver, and
very hard lapis-lazuli.’

The above passages, and some others quoted by Sylvain
Levi (in his work on Nepal) will give some idea about the
Kiratas, the place where they lived, their appearance and their
ways of living, round about the time of Christ, when the
Mahdbhdrata was in the midst of its expansion as an encyclo-
paedic work. The ways of the Kirata were simple. They lived

34

KIRATA-JANA-K^TI

mostly on fruits and tubers, dressed themselves in skins, wore
their hair in a pointed top-knot, and were a pleasant-looking
people, but terrible with their weapons, and cruel in war. Their
yellow complexion evidently marked them off from other
Indian peoples.

About the proper home-land of the Kiratas, the following
passages arc noteworthy. In the Viput-Purdna, the following
verse occurs : —

piirve Kirdtd yasya syuh, pascimd Yavanah sthitah,
Brahnuindh Kpttriya- Vais yd madhye Sudras ca bhdgaiah.

‘(India) is in the middle, according to the division (of the
world), with Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas and Sudras : to
the east (of India) are the Kiratas, and to the west are the
Yavanas’. (Quoted in Raja-nnVu, I, p. 84 : the verse occurs
also in the Markatjdeya- Parana, in a slightly variant form.)

In the Pali Milinda-pcnVta (IV, 8, 94 : p. 321 of R. D.
Vadekar’s edition in the Devanagari character, Bombay, 1940),
there occurs the expression Cina-Vilata, my attention to which
was kindly drawn by my friend Krishna-kanta Handiqui
(former Vice-Chancellor of Gauhati University). This must
be a misreading for Cina-Ciluta, i.e., Clna-Kirata, as names of
connected peoples (thus, in the same passage, we have Saka-
Yavana, Alasanda= Alexandria, Nikumba ~ ?, Kasi-Kosala, and
Kasmira-Gandhdra : T. W. Rhys Davids in his translation, in
the ‘Sacred Books of the East’, 1894, pp. 203-204, takes Vilata
to mean ‘Tartary’, and he gives an additional reading from the
Siamese MSS., viz., Mildta : but the word is certainly Kirata »
Cilata, and the letters for c and v are frequently interchanged
in old scripts, as they arc in Devanagari. Sylvain L6vi has
also noted this passage.

The Greek work Pcriplus of the F.rythraan Sea of the first
century A. D. knows of the Kirrhadai (i.e., the Kirdda or Kirata
people) as ‘a race of men with flattened noses, very savage’, as
living beyond Dosarene (-- Daidrna) : this suggests that the
Kiratas were already in West Bengal, to the west of the
Ganges, in the regions to the north-east of DaSarna or Orissa.
Near the Kirrhadai were, according to the Periplus, another
people called Burgysoi, who have been identified with the

KIRAdO IN RAJASTHAN I KIRATAS IN THE NORTH-EAST 35

Bhargcis , mentioned as neighbours of the Kiratas by the Vi$nu-
Purdna . The Kirrhadai and 'heir neighbours of the same stock
participated in the little trade in silk that used to be carried
on between China and India, through Yun-nan, North Burma
and Assam, in the centuries round about the Christian era.

We have to note the presence of an old city connected with
the Kirata name in Jodhpur state in Western Rajasthan, near
the railway station of Khadin on the Jodhpur Banner line.
This is the city of Kirddu , now in ruins, with its 27 temples,
of which only 5 are standing, situated about 4 miles west of
Khadin, near the hamlet of Hathma or Hatma. There is *an
inscription of 1235 Samvat era in a Siva temple there. The
name Kirddu would appear to be from Kirdta-kitpa ‘Wells of
the Kiratas 1 — there are a number of wells in the neighbour-
hood in the midst of the desert (or from Kirdta-kufa ‘Kirata-
hillock’ ?).

From the above accounts, it would appear that during the
centuries immediately before Christ, and in the early Christian
centuries, the Kiratas were known to the Hindu world as a
group of peoples whose original home was in the Himalayan
slopes and in the mountains of the East, in Assam particularly,
who were yellow in colour and presented a distinct type of
culture. They had spread all over the plains of Bengal up to
the sea, and appear to have penetrated as far as West Bengal.
They were rich with all the natural wealth of minerals and
forest produce with which the mountains and hills and jungles
where they lived abounded, but they were adepts in the
art of weaving cloth (as their descendants still are), the cotton
and woollen fabrics they made being very much in demand
among the more civilised Hindus of the plains.

The ancient tradition naming particularly the Mongoloid
inhabitants of the Eastern frontiers as Kiratas is found down to
late medieval times. Thus in the Rdjd-mdld chronicle of the
Tripura Kings (a verse chronicle in Bengali going back to the
1 6th century), the Kirata affinities of the local dynasty, other-
wise believed to be of Indo-Aryan (Kshutiiya) origin, are set
forth elaborately. And in the Ydgini Tantra , a late (post-16th
century) work giving an account of the Sakta holy places and

J

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

Sakta ritual in Assam, the remarkable admission is made —
Siddhesi ! Yd gin dp it he dharmah Kdiratajo matah
‘O Queen of all Siddhas (---Uma), in the holy shrine of
of the Yogini (i.e., Kamarupa) the dharma (ritual or
religion) is considered to be of Kirata origin.* (Quoted
by Dr. Banikanta Kakati in his monograph The Mother
Goddess Kdmdkhyd , Gauhati, 1948, p. iii ; a variant
reading in the Calcutta (1 333 B.S.) of the

Yogini Tantra , ed. by Kalimohan BhattacharyU, p. 457,
Patala IX, verse 13, gives in a corrupt form — sands 6
yogi ni -pi the dharma Kdirdtajam mat am.)

27. Reconstruction or the Early Mongoloid (Kirata)
Movements in India

We may be permitted to reconstruct the picture of the
Kirata or Early Mongoloid Movements on the soil of India
right down to the beginning of the Christian era. They enter-
ed probably through Assam, and their advent in the east might
have been as old as that of the Aryans in the west, at some
period before 1000 B.C. By that time they might have pushed
along the Himalayan slopes as far west as the Eastern Panjab
Hills. They came to be known to the Vedic Aryan as a cave-
dwelling people from whom the Aryans obtained mountain
produce like drugs and herbs and the soma plant. The four
books of the Vedas were compiled in all likelihood in the 10th
century B.C., so that the passages in the Yajurveda and the
Atharvaveda mentioning the Kiratas are at least as old as that
period. When the Mahdhhdrata and the Ramdyana were tak-
ing shape, between 500 B.C. to 400 A.D , particularly in the
pre-Christian centuries, they had occupied the southern tracts
of the Himalayas and the whole of North-eastern India, North
Bihar contiguous to Nepal and to the north of the Ganges, the
greater part of Bengal, and Assam, including the areas through
which the Ganges (the Padma or Padda of the present day)
passed into the sea. Eastern Nepal and the Lauhitya or the
Brahmaputra valley were the lands specially connected with

THE ‘PERI PLUS’ I CHANG KflEN : AND KIRATA

37

them. The Greeks in the 1st century A.D. had heard of
them (during their visits to Western India and South India) as
a wild people with the characteristic flat nose of the Mongol
races, living to the north-east of Orissa, by the sea, possibly in
the delta of the Ganges. A meagre stream of trade from
China used to filter through this Kirata country into the ports
of Gangetic India. Tribes allied to the Kirrhadai or Kiratas,
known to the Greeks as Besatai or Sesatai , used to bring mala-
bathrum from China in baskets carried on their backs. Other
Mongoloid peoples living to the north of the Kirrhadai were
the ‘Horsefaces’ and the ‘Longfaces’, who were known to be
cannibals ; and these terms were translations of Indian names
like Haya-mukhci (mentioned in early Jaina literature as a
Mleccha or barbarian people along with the Kiratas) or Aha-
vadana (mentioned in the Vara-Samhitd-Purana as living in
the mountains to the east of India : see W. H. SchofT, transla-
tion of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, London, 1912, p. 254,
quoting Taylor from the JASB, *1847, and Wilford in Asiatic
Researches , VIII-1X). Chang Khen, the Chinese general and
explorer of Central Asia in the 2nd century B.C., also testified
that there was a trade between North-eastern India and South-
western China through routes among the southern barbarian
peoples which were not officially known to the Chinese ruling
classes in the capital city in North China : this trade was in
Chinese silk cloth and Chinese bamboo flutes, among other
things, and it brought these articles into Eastern India, which
were then carried through the entire length of North India to
as far west as Afghanistan and Central Asia. The kinsmen of
the Chinese, the Indian Mongoloids, or lndo- Mongoloids, were
the intermediaries in this trade ; and not only did they carry
material goods from China, but also at times brought ideas,
as we shall presently see, down to the second half of the first
millennium A.D.

28. Tndo-Mongoloid’ as a proposed Equivalent or ‘Kirata’

The Mongoloid tribes from the east which after their settle-
ment within the frontiers of India and in the contiguous tracts

38

kirata-jana-krti

came to be known to the Aryan-speakers as their neighbours
and dwellers in the same land — their compatriots— and were
designated as Kirdtas , row began to take their share in the
progress of Indian history and the development of Indian
culture, albeit at first on the outward fringes. They may for
convenience be described in English as Indo-Mongoloids ; and
this is a term which defines at once their Indian connexion and
their place within the cultural milieu in which they found
themselves, as well as their original racial affinity. The word,
formed on the model of Indo-European , Indo- Aryan, Indo-
Scythian , Indo-Saracenic , Indo-Chinese , Indonesian , etc., can
thus be employed as an equivalent of what the ancient Hindus
understood by Kirata (when they had definite geographical
and ethnic notions), and can also be employed to indicate all
those SinO'Tibctan-speaking tribes, Mongoloids of various
types in race, who entered into or touched the fringe of the
cultural entity that is India : viz., the Himalayan tribes (the
Nepal tribes and the North-Assam tribes), the Bodos and the
Nagas, the Kuki-Chins, the Ahoms, the Indian Tibetans, and
the Khasis, and the earlier tribes (of unknown affiliation with-
in the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan family) who
have now become absorbed in the populations of the plains of
Northern and North-eastern India.

29. Kol or Austric Influence on Sino-Tibetan

What was the relation of the Kirata or Indo-Mongoloid
tribes settling in North-eastern and Eastern India with the
earlier Austric and Dravidian speaking peoples? We know
nothing about it. In Burma and Indo-China, the Mongoloids
have largely absorbed the earlier Austric peoples. The history
of Burma has been in the main a conflict between the Mran-ma
or Burmese Mongoloids from the north and the Rmah(Rmeh) or
Mon Austro- Asiatics livingin Central and Suthern Burma, leading
finally to the complete subjugation and gradual absorption of
the Mons, in spite of the latter possessing a superior culture
and having been the teachers of the ruder Mongoloid Burmese
in arts and culture, religion and higher life. The same thing

NISADA (AUSTRIC) INFLUENCE ON KIRaTA

39

may have taken place in Assam and Eastern India. But in
India, there was already operative a mighty leveller in the form
of the Aryan speech. Nevertheless, some glimpses of the
relationship between the incoming Mongoloids and the Aus-
trics and Dravidians and the Aryan-speakers are available in
India, in Assam and in Nepal, in the way in which speakers of
Sino-Tibetan dialects are becoming Aryanised in speech. In
some cases, the Austric speech has triumphed over Sino-
Tibetan : the case of Khasi is in point. In the Nepal valley, in
certain cases the Mongoloid dialects have apparently ousted
Austric speeches ; but the latter, while giving way, have
managed in some matters to influence the former. Thus in
Eastern Nepal, and in Kumaon and Garhwal, and further to
the west as far as Chamba, there are two groups of Tibeto-
Burman dialects which show what has been called Pronomina-
lisation , i.e., the incorporation of the pronoun with the verb :
e.g., Limbu peg-ang^ ‘went-I, I went’ ; hip-tu-ng ^‘strike-him-I,
I strike him’ ; hip-ne-ni-ng~‘\ itrike-you-two-I, I strike you
two’ ; hip-d ‘he strikes me, I am struck’, me-hip d They strike
me’ : and this is a characteristic of Kol or Munda languages
of the Austric family, which are found to have invaded at least
two New Indo-Aryan speeches, the Maithili and Magahi of
Bihar (e.g., mdraliauk * have struck him for your benefit’ —
mdr-al-= ‘struck’ T -f- T’ -ciu- Tor you’ T -£ = ‘hinT). This
characteristic the Tibeto-Burman Himalayan dialects like
Kanauri or Kanawari, Lahuli, Kiranti (Dliimal, etc.) could
only have acquired through contact with Austric speeches, now
sup, . csscd. The Kiranti (Kiruti) group of peoples in Eastern
Nepal, whose name it was which has, in all likelihood, been
adopted by the Aryan-speakers as Kirdta , speak pronomina-
lised dialects : and this fact shows a very early contact with
Austric-spcakers in Himalayan tracts, and the presence of such
Austric-speakers could only have been a very ancient thing in
India, probably going back to pre-Christian limes. This Kol
or Austric characteristic having invaded their language proves
more than anything else the antiquity of the Kirantis. The
speakers of the Tronominahsed Himahyan languages’ number
(Census of 1931) 114,000 souls, of whom 26,000 speak Kanauri

40

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

and other western languages of the group, and 88,000 the
eastern Kiranti, etc.

30. The Licchavis of North Bihar, and the Indo-
Mongoloids in Videha

Among the ancient peoples of Eastern India were the
Licchavis. They were a powerful and a very well-advanced
clan of North Bihar who claimed to be (and their claim was
generally also recognised) Kshatriyas. They flourished in the
time of Buddha, and theii prestige was still great nearly 800
years later, in the time of the early Gupta emperors. Some
scholars believe that the Licchavis were Indo-Mongoloids,
already Aryanised in speech, although they retained a good
many of their original Tibeto-Burman ways. Their tribal
name has certainly a non-Aryan ring, and they had a number
of peculiar customs which suggested Tibeto-Burman affinities
(cf. Indian Antiquary , 1903, p. # 233 : note by V. A. Smith).
But it is a disputed point. But nevertheless, we may quite
legitimately postulate the settlement of the plains of North
Bihar (as much as North Bengal and Assam) by Sino-Tibetan
tribes, in the midst of the earlier Austrics and Dravidians ; and
all these non-Aryan speakers (with a submerged Austric ele-
ment dominating in the long run, judging from the evolution
of the Maithili speech in the matter of Pronominalisation) were
combined into one Aryan-spceking people of North Bihar,
after the Aryan language and the Vedic religion came from the
west, across the Sadanird or Gomti river, into Videgha or
Videha, sometime before 600 B.C.

31. Indo-Mongoloid Tribes : the Himalayan Group : the
Newars ; the Ancient Kuninda People

All the Indo-Mongoloid tribes, speaking the various langu-
ages of both the Tibeto-Burman and Siamese-Chinese branches
of the same Sino-Tibetan speech-family, now (census of 1961)
number within the Union of India, 3,183,505 persons, exclud-
ing several more millions in Nepal which along with India
Proper, Bangla Desli and Pakistan, as well as Ceylon, fail with-
in the Indian orbit.

HIMALAYAN INDO-MONGOLOIDS

41

The Mongoloid tribes speaking dialects of the Tibeto-
Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan speech-family would appear
to have found a centre of dispersion in some tract to the east of
Tibet and north-east of Assam, from where they began to spread
into India and Tibet ; and the movement may have started, as
suggested before, prior to 1000 B.C. at least. The route taken
by the first arrivals into India is not known—- whether it was
from Tibet, and then south by crossing the Himalayas, or
whether it was from East Assam, along the Bharali, the Banga,
the Subansiri, the Brahmaputra, the Sesiri, the Dibang, the
Luhit and the Noa Dihing and other rivers, and down the
Brahmaputra in Assam. The Garos, a Bodo people, isolated
from their brother Bodo tribes, have a tradition that they
came to their present home in the Garo Hills from Tibet in
the North ; but how far this tradition is ancient, genuine and
trustworthy we do not know. The original Mongoloid in-
comers were a very primitive people, being mostly hunters
and food-gatherers who also used caves for habitation. The
Tibetans, according to a late Buddhist tradition which is of
very doubtful historical value, are said to have entered their
country during the life-time of Buddha — say about the middle
of the 1st millennium B.C. They may have been preceded by
earlier tribes who formed the nucleus or basis of the ‘Hima-
layan’ Mongoloids of Nepal, speaking languages like Newari,
Lepcha, Magar and* Gurung, and the ‘pronominalised’ langu-
ages like Dhimal, Khambu, Kanawari and others. The speakers
of the ‘pronominalised’ dialects probably represent the earliest
waves ; and the Nevvars, Lepchas, Magars, Gurungs, etc.,
represent later arrivals. In addition to the 1 14,000 ‘Himalayan’
Tibeto-Burmans speaking ‘pronominalised* dialects, there are
some 102,000 people who employ the ‘non-pronominalised’
dialects (including 43,000 Murmis, 18,000 Magars and 25,000
Rong or Lepchas), besides the Newars in Nepal valley and
India proper. (The Lepchas have been connected with the
Nagas in Nagaland State by their speech by Robert Shafer, in
the Journal of the Bihar Research Society , Vol. 36, 1950, pp.
192-214 : ‘Classification of some Languages of the Himalayas’,
p. 192. Also see R. Shafer % Journal <\f the Bihar Research Society ,

42 KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

Patna, Vol. 39, 1953, pp. 225-264 : ‘the Classification of the
Northernmost Naga Languages’.)

The ‘Himalayan’ groups of Indo-Mongoloids were thus
probably the first to be established in India, and settled in
Nepal, and pushed as far west as Garhwal and Kumaon, and
further to the west ; but they have remained largely in a very
primitive state : except for the Newars, in the valley of Nepal
(the basin of the Bagmati river), who represent the most
highly cultured group of Indo-Mongoloids who have still pre-
served their language. The entry of the Newars living in this
fertile valley within the fold of Indian culture took place pro-
bably not earlier than the 3rd century B.C., when, according
to tradition, Asoka built a number of Buddhist cailyas at
Patan. The Newars retained their Tibeto-Burman tongue, and
until recently used the Eastern Indian form of the Indian script
(the Kutila) to write it : now they are using Devanagari to print
Newari books. Sanskrit learning took root among the Newars,
and a Newari literature came into being fairly early — although
the oldest extant remains do not go beyond the end of the
14th century. Arts and literature from the neighbouring
Mithila, Magadha and Bengal found a new home in Nepal
among the Newars, and a distinct and a marvellously artistic
local form of Hindu (Buddhist and Brahmanical) civilisation
came into being. The history of Nepal up to the conquest
of Nepal valley by the Gurkhas from Western Nepal in 1767 is
the history of the Newars. The exact number of Newari
speakers is not known ; it may be between 200,000 to 300,000
now.

These ‘Himalayan’ Indo-Mongoloids appear to have mixed
with Aryan-speakers in the East Panjab Hills. The Khasas
were an Aryan-speaking tribe who appear, like the Gorkhas
of a later age, to have absorbed a good deal of Indo-Mongoloid
blood. The Kunindas, an ancient Eastern Panjab Hill people,
are believed to have been of mixed Indo-Aryan and Indo-
Mongoloid origin — -Indo-Mongoloid on the mother’s side,
Indo-Aryan on the father's. The Kunindas were an important
Aryan-speaking tribe in Eastern Panjab in the centuries round
about Christ. Their descendants now form the considerable

TIBETO-BURMAN ‘-Tl’ WATER : THE BOD

43

Kunet community of the Simla Hills (57% of the total inhabi-
tants, 285,741 persons out of a total population of 501,300 in
the area, according to the Census of 1871 : and there were
some 400,000 Kuncts in the Trans-Satlaj areas— between the
Bias and the Satlaj, and in the States of Kahlur, Mandi and
Suket : cf. Alexander Cunningham, Archaeological Survey of
India, Vol. XIV, 1878-1879, pp. 1 25fT.) Cunningham in his
study of the area inhabited by the Kuninda-Kunet people
suggested the presence of Sino-Tibetan (Tibcto-Burman) and
Austric (Kol) elements in names of rivers and other physical
features. Thus the Tibeto-Burman -//, -c//, ‘water, river’ is
said to occur in river-names in the Kunet area ; e.g., Rawa-ti
= ‘Ravi River’, Nyung-ti= ‘Bias’, Zang-ti= ‘Satlaj’, Pdra-ti~
‘Para River’, etc. The feeders of the Palcar river have names
ending in -// — like Gumo-ti y Kashia-ti , Matre-ii , Supc-ti , Chu-ti 9
Andre-ti ; those of the Giri river — Chigaon-ti , Chehi-ti y Ure-ti ;
of the Tons — Hamal-ti , Buraha-ti ; of the Satlaj — Ghail-ti ,
Manyao-ti , Khanyao-ti 9 Wa(-ti 9 Ti‘dong y Nangal-ti 9 Kha-ti y
Shel-ti y Nare-ti ; of the Spiti river— Kyok-ti y Ling-ti 9 etc,
Cunningham suggested that it is the Tibeto-Burman which
occurs in Sanskritiscd names of rivers like Irdva-ti f Goma-ti 9
Parba-tL This suggestion is certainly wide of the mark, but
the possibility of the Tibeto-Burman -// is not to be entirely
excluded in studying toponomastics in North India. (Cunning-
ham, op. cit. y pp. 132, 133.) Cf. ‘A Peculiarity of the River
Names in Assam and some of the countries adjoining’ by S. E.
Peal (Sibjsagar Dharma-prakash Press, Shillong, 1876), where we
have names like Rap-ti, Tap-ti y Gom-ti y Kam-ti y Bhag-ra-ti ‘ Big
Water '>Bhagirathi y Isa-mo-tolccha-matitf), etc., etc.

An Indo-Mongoloid substratum therefore is quite possible
in North-eastern Panjab even : and this substratum is possibly
from among the first batch of ‘Himalayan’ Indo-Mongoloids.

32. The ‘Bod’ ( Biiota) or Tibetans

After the ‘Himalayan’ group of the Indo-Mongoloids, we
have to consider the other groups. The Tibetan people, whose
national name Bod (as it was pronounced in the 7th century

44

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

A.D. : this has now become Pd or Phd) has been Indianised
as Bhotciy were a numerous and a well-organised tribe, and a
fairly powerful one. They had developed the bases of their
characteristic culture on the soil of Tibet, where they had also
formed their religion, the pre-Buddhistic Bon religion, and had
also probably come to evolve the epic story-cycle of a national
hero in the saga of Kesar (or Gesar) king of Gling, prior to
the 7th century A.D. When in the middle of the 7th century,
the king of the Tibetans Srong-brtsan-sgam-po adopted
Buddhism, and by matrimonial alliances linked up his country
with both India (Nepal) and China, the Tibetans emerged
into history from their pre-historic state. They adopted the
Indian alphabet as current in Kashmir for their language, and
began assiduously to cultivate the literature of Buddhism.
They adopted in toto the religious art and ritual of Buddhist
India, and at the same time they took over many an item of
civilised life from China. The Tibetans as staunch Buddhists
always looked upon India as their holy land, but they did not
try to penetrate into India, on a large scale, seeking to emu-
late the earlier 'Himalayan’ Indo-Mongoloids. But some
groups of them came south towards India nevertheless, nota-
bly in Sikkim and in Bhotan. On the whole, the Tibetans
remained foreigners so far as India was concerned — ardent
borrowers from Indian culture, particularly in the artistic,
intellectual and mystic and religious sides. They were thus
never of the comity of Indian peoples, and they did not add
anything to the sura-total of Indian culture (although some
Tibetan influence in the shaping of the Tantric cults in North-
eastern India has been assumed, quite erroneously in my
opinion, by some). The Census of 1931 enumerated some
252,000 Tibetan-speakers in India, of whom 137,000 were
Bhotias of Baltistan, and 42,000 Bhotias of Ladakh.

33. The North Assam Tribfs of Indc-Mongoloids

From their centre of dispersion, other Tibeto-Burman
tribes took up their trek into India along the Brahmaputra

NORTH ASSAM MONGOLOIDS : THE BODOS

45

river westward. Some of them found homes in the mountain-
ous tracts to the north of Assam, where we find them in the
Balipara Frontier 1'ract to the east of Bhotan as Akas
(Hrussos), Abors (Adis) and Miris and Dallas, and in the Sadiya
Frontier Tract to the east as Mishmis. These have always
remained in a very primitive state, and never had any occasion
to advance in civilisation like some of their cousins and
brothers in the plains and in Nepal. The North Assam tribes,
however, appear to be connected with the Nagas and Bodos
living to their south. In any case, some sacrificial rites among
the Abors appear to be of the type current among the Nagas.
The speakers of these North Assam speeches come up to about
142,650 now (1961 Census), of whom some 4,000 speak Abor
(Adi), some 136,600 speak Miri and 1380 Dafia.

The Tibeto Burrnans who came down to Burma in suc-
ceeding waves became diversified as the common ancestors of
the Bodos and Nagas on the one hand, who came to Assam
and the Brahmaputra valley in fairly early times, and on the
other the ancestors of the Kachins or Singphos and the Lolos
who have always remained in Burma, the primitive Kuki or
Chin people who are found in south-east Assam and Burma
(the Manipuris oT Mcitheis being the most important group
among them), and the Mran-ma (Myamma or Byamma), i.e.,
the Burmese proper, who have partly infiltrated into Chitta-
gong through Arakan. All these groups are together classed
as the Assam-Burma section of the Tibeto-Burmans, by virtue
of some common points of linguistic and cultural resemblance
among them.

34. The Bodos (Baras)

The Bodo tribes are linguistically connected with the Nagas,
but whereas the Nagas have till recently remained isolated and
primitive, one may say that the Bodos, who spread over the
whole of the Brahmaputra valley and North Bengal as well as
East Bengal, forming a solid bloc in North-eastern India, were
the most important Indo-Mongoloid people in Eastern India,

46

kirata-jana-krti

and they form one of the main bases of the present-day popu-
lation of these tracts. Judging from the wide range of exten-
sion of their language, the Bodos appear first to have settled
over the entire Brahmaputra valley, and extended west into
North Bengal (in Koch Bihar, Rangpurand Dinajpur districts);
they may have pushed into North Bihar also, and the Indo-
Mongoloids who penetrated into North Bihar might equally
have been either Bodos or ‘Himalayan’ tribes allied to the
Newars. They skirted the southern bend of the Brahmaputra
and occupied the Garo Hills, where, as Garos, they form a
bloc of Bodo speech. South of the Garo Hills they spread in
northern Maimansing, where the scmi-Bengaliscd Jlaijong tribe
is of Bodo origin. From Nowgong district in Assam their
area of occupation extended to Cachar district (particularly in
the North Cachar Hills) and into Sylliet, and from Cachar and
Sylhet they moved further to the south, to Tripura State, where
there is still a Bodo-speaking bloc in the shape of the Tipra
tribe which founded the State ; and from Tripura they spread
into Comilla and possibly also Noakhali districts : and thus
they occupied the mouths of the Ganges by the eastern sea.
With the exception of the isolated Khasi and Jaintia Hills, the
whole of Assam (barring the eastern parts inhabited by the
Nagas and the south-eastern parts inhabited by the Kuki-
Chins) and North and East Bengal was the country of the
great Bodo people. But at the present moment, except where
some islands of Bodo speech still remain, the Kirata Bodos
have merged into the Bengali and Assamese speaking masses,
Hindu as well as Musalman, in the area.

There is at present a strong movement among the Bodos of
Assam Valley to establish their language as a language of
literature and culture, and of instruction in schools and colleges.
A modern literature is being created in Bodo, with collections
of folk poetry and tales, and with literary journals. The
Bengali-Assamese script is used.

According to the Census of 196!, the Bot^o speakers in
India numbered 1,228,450 persons— over one million, of whom
307,000 were Garos, some 300,000 M rungs or Tipras, and the
rest Kachans, Rabhas, Meches, Kochcs, etc. For Bodo tribes,

THE NAGAS

47

see Sidney Endle, The Kacharis , London, 1911 ; J A. Playfair,
The Gar os, London, 1909.

35. The Nagas

Two other groups will complete the survey of the Indo-
Mongoloids of the Tibeto-Burman group in Assam : the
Nagas and the Kuki-Chins. The Nagas are in occupation of
the Naga Hills area in the east of Assam, and are found also
in the State of Manipur. Linguistically they are said to have
a close affinity with the Bodo speakers. But they have absorb-
ed some Negroid blood ; and in their culture, their ways of
life, they have remained very primitive. The name Naga , given
to them by their Aryan-speaking neighbours the Assamese,
means 'naked’ ( Naga ), and they were dreaded and detested as
being addicted to head-hunting. Numerically they are over
350,000 souls (Census of 1931), but they are split up into a
number of mutually exclusive tribes who do not always under-
stand each others’ speeches. The Aryan Assamese (in a broken
form, and known as Nagamese ) forms a common Lingua Franca
among the various Naga tribes. Christian missionaries have
furnished some literature to some of the Naga dialects (or
languages) by translating in them portions of the Christian
scriptures (e.g., in Ao, Angami, Tangkul). There are some
very good monographs on the Nagas as a whole and dn the
different tribes of the Nagas by European ethnologists, from
which we are enabled to form a good idea of the Naga milieu.
In Manipur, there is a tendency among the Nagas to be
absorbed linguistically and culturally among the ruling Meithei
or Manipuri people.

The following works can be mentioned for a study of the
Nagas : T. C. Hodson, The Naga Tribes oj Manipur, London,
1911 ; J. H. Hutton, The Angami Nagas . London, 1921 ; ibid.,
The Serna Nagas , London, 1921 ; ibid.. The Lhota Nagas ,
London, 1922 ; William Carlson Smith, The Ao Naga Tribes
of Assam, London, 1925 ; S. N. Mazumdar, Ao Nagas , Calcutta,
1925 ; J. P. Mills, The Ao Nagas , London, 1926 ; Christoph
von Fuerer Haimcndorf, The Naked Nagas, Calcutta, 1946.

48

KIR ATA- JANA-KRTl

The Ncigas have just now entered the domain of Indian
civilisation in an official or formal manner with a state of their
own within the Indian Union, that of Nagaland. Now' mostly
Christians, some of their old religious notions and ceremonies
present a strange similarity with those of the later Vedic Aryans.

36. The Kukl-Chins

The Kuki-Chin Tribes present an important branch or sec-
tion of the Assam Indo-Mongoloids. They have their kinsmen
in Burma, and appear to have settled in fairly ancient times in
Manipur and the Lushei Hills, as well as in the Chittagong
Hill Tracts. From Lushei Hills and Manipur they came in
large numbers to Tripura State, where they form an important
section of the people. These Indo-Mongoloids are known to
the Assamese and Bengalis as Kukis , and to the Burmese as
Chins (written Khyin) , and Kuki-Chin has been adopted as a
composite and inclusive name for them. The Meitheis or
Manipuris appear to have entered the Hindu fold at least as
early as the 8th century w'hen Vaishnavism spread among
them : but Meithei Hindu traditions would take their admi-
ssion into the group of Hindu peoples to a remote antiquity.
They developed an alphabet, a modification of the Indian
system of writing, the actual time and provenance of which are
not known. But from the middle of the 18th century, they
adopted the Bengali script with the conversion of the ruling
Manipur king Gharib-nawaz Singh to Chaitanya Vaishnavism,
through Bengali Vaishnava preachers from Sylhet in 1740.
The Meitheis are now staunch Hindus, and through them
Manipur has been made the easternmost outpost of Hindu
culture in India. In modern times, the Manipur Vaishnava dance
— the Rasa — has been a great contribution to the art of the
Dance as an expression of Modern Indian culture. The Meitheis
are very proud of their language which has a growing literature
— of translations from the Sanskrit, and Bengali, of original
poems, of dramas, and of novels and general prose essays. The
eminent Manipuri Sanskritist and leader of Hindu culture,

THE MANIPURIS AND SANSKRIT CULTURE

49

Par?<Jitaraja Atombapu Vidyaratna, has brought out editions of
the Bhagavad-Gita , the Gda-zdvinda , the Bhdgavata Purana , the
Sdrasvata Vyakarana and other Sanskrit works with Manipur i
translations ; dramas in Manipuri, original or translated from
Bengali, are staged in the public theatres in Imphal; and a huge
narrative poem of some 34,000 lines on the love and adventures
of the hero Khamba and the princess Thoibi (who arc supposed
to have lived during the first half of the 12th century), based
on popular ballads on the theme — has been composed by the
late Hijum Anganghal Singh (d. 1944), the greatest poet of
Manipuri at the present age. Manipuri as a mother-tongue is
studied up to the BA. examination, and unquestionably it is
the most important language in Eastern India, after Bengali
and Assamese.

The number of Manipuri speakers according to the Census
of 1961 was 636,400 ; but as the language is taught all over the
State, both the Kukis, linguistic relatives of the Meitheis, and
the Nagas are acquiring it, so that the language may have
doubled its extent, and may hit the million mark ere long.
Manipuri Brahmans have penetrated into Burma also, and
they have been for the last few centuries important missio-
naries of the Sanskrit culture of India in South-Eastern Assam
and Burma. The total number of Kuki-Chin speakers in India,
according to the 1961 Census, is 1,043,414, including nearly
6'5 lacs of Manipuris, and 222,202 Lushais or Mizos. (For the
Kuki-Chins, sec Linguistic Survey of India , Volume III, Part 3,
Kuki-Chins and Burma Groups, Calcutta, 1904 ; Lt.-Col.
J. Shakespear, The Lushei Kuki Clans , London, 1912 ; Tarak
Chandra Das, The Pur urns, an Old Kuki Tribe of Manipur ,
Calcutta University, 1945.)

37. Other Indo-Mongoloids of Assam

There arc a few other Indo-Mongoloid tribes of Assam,
small in number and insignificant in influence, who form inter-
mediate groups among the Bodos, the Nagas and the Kukis.
Thus the Empeos (10,280, LSI estimate), the Khoiraos (15,000,

4

50

kirAta-jana-k$ti

LSI) and the Kabuis (30,089, estimate of 1961 Census) are
looked upon as Nagas, but they are in language intermediate
between the Bo^os and the Nagas. Then there are the Miktrs
(154,893, Census of 1961), living in the Mikir Hills (Nowgong
and Sibsagar), who linguistically are between the Kukis and
the Nagas. The Mikirs appear to be a gifted people, with an
imaginative turn of mind, as is noticable in some of their
folk-tales.

38. The Austric-Speaking Khasis

The Khasis of Assam (364,993, Census of 1961) require a
special notice. They form an island of Mon-Khmer (Austric, or
Austro-Asiatic) speakers within the original Botfo area. They
are by race Indo-Mongoloid, but their language is different.
They would appear to be a Mongoloid people who have adopt-
ed the language of the earlier race, the Austrics (or Proto-
Australoids), after they came down south from the Tibcto-
Burman area of dispersion. They may have changed their
speech to the Austric (Mon-Khmer) Khasi even while they
were in Burma ; and after that they may have come to Assam
and ensconced themselves in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, suc-
cessfully resisting all possible attempts of the Bo<Jos who
followed them in dislodging or absorbing them. It is equally
likely that they were a congeries of diverse Tibeto-Burman
speaking tribes in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills and in the plains
of Sylhet, settling among original Austric speakers, whose
language the Tibeto-Burman settlers in this area found con-
venient to adopt when their own tribal dialects were too numer-
ous and too diverse. Possibly this linguistic change-over
occurred before the coming of the waves of Botfo expansion.
Their linguistic uniqueness they have preserved among the
surrounding Tibeto-Burmans (Bodos) and Aryan-speakers
(Bengalis and Assamese).

The Khasis are a gifted people, and contact with the
Bengalis in the south and the Assamese in the north and east,
and with European Christian missionaries within their own

THB AHOMS

51

country have been of great help in making them advance in
the scale of civilisation. They study their language which has
been Romanised, and they have produced educators and ad-
ministrators of note. In importance, they are to be mentioned
after the Newars, the Botfos and the Manipuris among the
Indo-Mongoloid peoples of India.

39. The Ahom (Aham, Asam) People of the
Siamese-Chinese Group

The various Tibeto-Burman groups thus came to be establish-
ed on the soil of India in times of which we have no historical
memory or notion. But within historical times, another Mongo-
loid people, this time not of Tibeto-Burman but of Siamese-
Chinese speech, entered into North-Eastern Assam from Burma
through the Patkoi Range and along the Noa-Dihang river.
They were the Asams , or Ahami (Ahoms), a people who gave
their name to the province of Assam . They advanced into India
as a group of invaders who established themselves in the eastern-
most part of the Brahmaputra Valley under their chief Su-ka-pha
in 1228 A.D. Gradually they extended their power and rule,
conquering the local peoples, Hindus of diverse origin, mostly
Botfos. By the middle of the 1 6th century, after conquering the
powerful Hindu Bo<Jo kingdom of the Kacharis, they became
paramount in the valley of the Brahmaputra. The Ahoms ruled
over Assam right up to the annexation of the province by the
English in 1824. The Hinduisation of the Ahoms, at first in
culture and religion and then in language, commenced with
great vigour in the 17th century ; by 1750 it was almost complete.
They cultivated their language, and wrote Buranjis or Chronicles
in them, a practice which they continued in Assamese after they
abandoned Ahom for Assamese. Their most glorious period
was the second half of the 17th and the first half of the 18th
century, when they had progressed a great deal in their Hindu-
isation. In their political history and their achievements (suc-
cessful resistance to the Muslims from the West) the Ahoms
formed a most important and a very powerful nation of Indo-
Mongoloid Hindus in North-Eastern India. .

52

kirAta-mna-krti

40. Indo-Mongoloid Fusion in the Indian Body-
Politic still Continuing — in N^pal, in Assam,
and in North and East Bengal

Mongoloid participation in the enacting of the common
drama of political hi *ory and in the evolution of the common
culture of North-Eastern and sub-Himalayan India is not ye a
thing of the past. It was operative in the Panjab M .;malay n :i
areas, in North Bihar, and in other tracts, in ancient ' hues. Ve
see the process of fusion working before our eyes, in two disii ;ct
areas particularly — in Nepal, and in Assam and N :tb s nd
East Bengal. The following tribes or peoples have been r fleet-
ed by it : the ‘Himalayan 1 Indo-Mongoloids who hav now
merged into the Kunets, the Khasas and other mixed peoples
in the area between the Satlaj and the Bias in the Panjab Hills ;
the tribes living in the East Panjab and North-West United
Province Hills, including Garjiwal and Kumaon (like the
Manchat, the Rangloi, the Buman, the Kanash and the
Kanawari : the Rangka, Darmiya, Byangsi and the Chau-
dangsi tribes — all belonging to the western group of ‘complex
pronominalised’ Himalayan Tibeto-Burman dialects) ; the
Magars and Gurungs of West Nepal ; the Newars, Buddhistic
and Brahmanical inhabitants of the Nepal Valley ; the Kiranti
peoples of Central and Eastern Nepal (the Vayu, the Khambu,
the Yakha, the Limbu, the Dhimal and a few others, belong to
the eastern group of the ‘complex pronominalised 1 Himalayan
dialects). Of these, the Magars, the Gurungs and the Newars,
members of the Himalayan branch of the Indo-Mongoloids
whose language has not been affected by Austric, have become
largely modified by admixture with high-caste Hindu elements
from the Indian plains — at least in their upper classes. Then,
outside of Nepal, are the Bodes (Koches, Meches and other
tribes in North Bengal and Assam, Kacharis in Assam, and
Tipras in Tripura in East Bengal) and the Ahoms in Assam ;
besides the Austric- sneaking E basis and Jasntias in the Khasi
and Jaintia Hdls ; and hnahy, the Meuheis in Manipur.

The contribution to Indian culture of some of these
peoples has been quite noteworthy : particularly of the Newars,
the Bodos, the Aho-oo and in -/ccent time*?, of the Meithei*.

PARTICIPATION IN HINDU CULTURE

53

41. Nature of Indo-Mongoloid Participation
in Hindu Culture

What were the general lines of the Indo-Mongoloid parti-
cipation or contribution in the evolution of Indian culture and
in the course of Indian history in the areas where they were
active ? Briefly, it was of a piece with evolution of culture
and history in other parts of India : it was largely a case of
progressive Indianisation or Hinduisation of these Mongoloid
peoples, bringing them within the fold of what may be called
‘Sanskrit culture". This was a culture which was brought to
the Indo-Mongoloids in Nepal by both the Brahman prieH
and the Buddhist monk, and in Bengal and Assam by the
Brahman priest mainly. Hindu military adventurers and mer-
chants also participated. But it was not a case of one-sided
influence or absorption only. It was also a case of the Mongo-
loid speeches and ideologies, cults and customs being engrafted
on the stock of Hindu (i.e., Indo-Aryan-cum-Austric and
Dravidian) speech and ideology and cults and customs. Culture
and race contacts are never one-sided in their influence. The
later Mahayana Buddhism of Nepal as it was taken from Bihar
and Bengal, in its ideas and its ritual ; the Saiva and Sakta
cults, in their pure Hindu form as the Hindu iaritra and in
their Buddhist environment as Buddhist (antra in Nepal ; and
the local 5akta, Saiva and Vaishnava developments of Hindu-
ism in Assam and Bengal are due, partly a: least, to the reac-
tion of the early Mongoloids in North Bihar, and to the
temr rramcW - f f he No wars in Nepal and of the Bu^os, the
Ahoms and the Khasis in Bengal arid Assam. Bengal’s culture
has now become more or less uniform, with persistent North
Indian influences, aod h a \n iy West Bengali
character, more her m Jo Nhojgolom dernems dim: in

Assam aoo Nepal. * * La • ~ conquer liu. suncliuu ie> of
Hindu faith in Nepal, Assam and Bengal, some of which, like
that of Pasupatinaih in Nepal, of Kumakhya in Assam (Gau-
Niti). of Kali at Kodomr m Cm cm op and of Chan Jiariath
near Chittagong, h o r, .pdrmj a p.o- lamm: in< oa! o;,c

54

KIRAT A- JANA- K£TI

crafts, with certain modifications in the different areas, are the
result of the special social and mental environment of the
Indo-Mongoioid peoples. We have also to consider certain
types of artistic expression in the fine arts and the crafts, e.g.,
in architecture, as among the more advanced Indo-Mongoloids
like the Newars, the Koches, the Tipras, the Ahoms and the
Kachans, and in painting and sculpture, in decoration, in
the textile arts in both cotton and silk, and in dress, etc.,
generally. In this connexion, we have further to take note of
the coin-legends and anicomc coin types which were evolved
in Nepal on the one hand and in Bengal-Assam on the other,
in the courts of the Newar kings of Nepal, and the Koch,
Tripura, Ahom and Kachari, and Jaintia kings from the 15th
century onwards. That the mentality and the emotional qua-
lity of the Indo-Mongoloid peoples as a whole (now merged or
in the process of being merged into the Hindu and Hindu-
Buddhist and in some cases into the Bengali Muslim masses of
Nepal, Assam and Bengal) would be reflected in their history
and in the changes that took place in Hindu religion and
ritual and culture in general, are easy to understand.

42. The Mongoloid ‘Character' : and the Achievement of
the Indo-Mongoloids

It will be difficult to label the ‘character’ of the Mongoloid
peoples as a whole in certain categorical terms. But it may be
said, without being dogmatic on the point, that a great optim-
ism and a cheerfulness of temper, combined with a bon-homie
and a c&meraderie that are the result of a 6ense of happy-go-
lucky freedom, appear to be the most salient qualities of the
character of the Mongoloid peoples. Self-reliance and courage,
as well as resourcefulness, are other good points in the Mongo-
loid character. On the debit side, however, they appear to be
rather credulous, and at times they can be very cruel to both
man and beast; and, besides, they lack a depth of thought
and possibly also a depth of feeling or emotion (in this they
arc quite unlike their kinsmen, the Chinese). A habit of indo-
lence, after their immediate need: are satisfied, seems to be

ACHIEVEMENT OF INDO-MONGOLOIDS

55

present as an occasional characteristic : but when roused to
action, they are capable of concerted and sustained work.
They are factual and not philosophical, and pragmatic and
practical rather than argumentative. They have also an innate
sense of decoration and colour and of rhythm. In the blankets
and loin-cloths they weave, there is a harmonious combination
of colours — scarlet reds, and blacks, and yellows and blues,
sometimes with geometrical patterns. Dance as an art is well-
developed among them — among some tribes forming a part of
their religious ritual, both pre-Hindu and Hindu. They like
mimicry ; and on the basis of this, where they have developed
the drama, they take to it with great enthusiasm. In certain
matters, particularly in the fine arts, they make very good
pupils, but they seldom go beyond the few traditional paths.

The Indo-Mongoloids were the great transmitters of the
culture they received from the Hindus of the plains. The
Newars passed on the art of tbe Pala dynasty of Eastern India
to Tibet and beyond ; the early Kukis, and the Bo<?os of Assam
and Eastern Bengal, in the PaUikera kingdom in the district of
Comillah, and in certain Hindu or Hinduised principalities of
Chittagong and Arakan, were the intermediaries in the trans-
mission by land routes of the Brahmanical and Buddhistic
culture of India to Burma and beyond, during the greater part
of the 1st millennium A.D., and probably in the early pre-
Christian centuries as well.

Another great contribution of the Indo-Mongoloids was in
the successful resistance they gave, after they took initiation
into Hindu culture, to the aggressive spirit of Islam in India.
Assam was never permanently conquered by the Musalmans.
From 1198 onwards, there were a dozen invasions of Assam,
but in 1681 the Moguls in the time of Aurang-zeb were driven
out for good by the Ahora king Su-pat-pha (or Gadadhar
Simha). His son Su-khrung-pha (or Rudra Sirpha) even con-
templated attacking and conquering Bengal /rom the Moguls,
with the help of a confederacy of the Hindu princes of Eastern
India whose friendship he was cultivating with this end in
view ; but death put an end to all his objectives on the eve of
his projected advance against the Moguls in Bengal with well-

56

KIRATA * J AN A-KRTI

trained and well-prepared armed forces. It i s also a moot
point if at any time the Musalrnans from India were able to
create an impression upon the Newars, even if they penetrated
into the valley of Nepal. Hill Tiperah — the kingdom of
Tripura — was never conquered by the Muslims from Bengal,
and, as in Assam, the Tripura kings with their Tipra and Kuki
troops in many cases drove out the Muslim invaders by brilliant
generalship and superb courage. The Kachar and Jaintia king-
doms always remained independent Hindu states on the fringe
of a Bengal which was ruled by Muslim Sultans and Subahdars
(Viceroys of the Mogul emperor in Agra and Delhi) and
Nawabs. The Koch king Nara-narayana was no mean con-
temporary of the great Akbar ; the Tippcrah king Dhanya-
magikya who ruled c. 1500 A.D., and one of Dhanya-manikya’s
successors Vijaya-mai^ikya who was a contemporary of Akbar,
were great soldiers and they built up strong and extensive
kingdoms which very well merited the title of empires , and
the Ahom kings Gadadhar Simha and Rudra Simha, contem-
poraries of Aurang-zeb and Bahadur Shah of Delhi, were also
enlightened and powerful kings.

The Newar kingdoms were centres of a great school of
plastic art for centuries from the days of the Pahs of Bengal
and Bihar, and latterly of music and the drama

In giving successful resistance to Muslim aggression, dis-
tance from Delhi was -no doubt a great facto* ; and the rainy
season in Bengal and Assam was a great asset for defence.
Yet all these invasions had their bases in Bengal, at Dacca and
at Gaur, and the distance from Delhi to Koch Bihar, Gauhatt
and Rangpur (Jorhat) in Assam, and to Udaipur in Tripura,
is not greater than that from Delhi to Bijapur or Golconda.
The doughty light-armed foot-soldiers (pdiks) of Mongoloid
origin, as a mobile body of troops, were more than a match for
the Turki, Pathan, Mogul and Rajput mail-clad horsemen in
the terrain of North and East Bengal and Assam. And these
light-armed and very mobile pdiks of Bengal, particularly ot
North Bengal and Tripura Assam, who sieuuuco the tide
of Muslim advance on many occasion, have to be given
their due recognition, side by with, the othtr ar.d more

CHARACTERISTICS Of MONGOLOID CULTURE

57

famous fighters of India — the Panjabi Hindus (Jats, Sikhs and
Rajputs) and Muslims, the Rajputs of Rajasthan and North
India, the North Indian Hindus and Musalmans, the Marathas,
the Oriyas, and the Telugus and the Gonds, the Bhils and the
Minas, die Kannadigas and the Yamihans, and the Nayars
of Kerala

43. Some Outstanding Characteristics of Mongoloid
(Tibeto -Burman) Culture (according to W. C. Smith)

In his A o Naga Tribes of Assam . a Study in Ethnology and
Sociology (London, 1925), Dr. W. C. Smith, a Christian
missionary as well as a sociologist from America among the
Nagas, has given 13 outstanding characteristics of the Tibeto-
Burman tribes of Assam, whom he attaches racially to the
‘Indonesians’, i.e , the peoples of Malaya and the Islands of
Indonesia. These are: (1) Head-hunting ; (2) Common

sleeping-houses for the unmarried men, which are taboo to
women ; (3) Dwelling Houses built on Posts and Piles ; (4)

Disposal of the Dead on raised Platforms ; (5) a sort of Trial
Marriage, or great freedom of intercourse between the sexes
before marriage ; (6) Betel-chewing ; (7) Aversion to milk as
an article of diet ; (8) Tatooing by pricking ; (9) Absence of
any powerful political organisation ; (10) the Double-cylinder
vertical forge; (II) the Simple Loom for weaving cloth;
(12) a large Quadrangular or Hexagonal Shield ; and (13)
Residence in Hilly Regions with a crude form of Agriculture
(pp. 120fT, op. at.). All these traits are of course not found
among all the Indo-Mongoloids (whether of Bengal and Assam
or of Nepal) of today, but there is evidence to show that these
were at one time spread or current among most or all of their
tribes. Some of these traits would appear to be of genuine
Mongoloid origin ; others, like the common club and sleeping-
house for bachelors, and betel-chewing, would seem in all
likelihood to have been adopted from the Austria predecessors
of the Mongoloids in their present habitat in Burma and
Assam. This matter, of course, requires closer investigation —

58

kirAta-jana-krti

the nature and extent of Sino-Tibetan and Austric cultural and
racial miscegenation in Eastern India and Farther India.

44. The Early Mongoloids and Hindu History and
Culture : Some Ancient Points of Contact

Before considering the question of Indo-Mongoloid or
Kirdta participation in Hindu history and culture in some detail,
regionally and chronologically, we may note some early points
of contact in the domain of religio-philosophical ideas and
religious cult and ritual.

The Aryan speech with the Vedic fire-cult does not appear
to have been established over Northern India beyond North
Bihar — Videgha or Mithila — before 700 B.C. Prior to that, in
the area of North Bengal and Assam, a powerful non-Aryan,
possibly Tibeto-Burman, state may have arisen, with a mixed
population of Austrics, Dravidians and Tibeto-Burmans — the
last, as representing a group of aggressive invaders from the East,
perhaps being dominant and furnishing the ruling class, as it
happened many centuries later when the Ahoms came to Assam.
This non-Aryan state, possibly ruled over by Indo-Mongoloids,
was susceptible to upper Gangetic Brahmanical influences from
the beginning. Traditionally, a ruler of this early Indo-
Mongoloid state, Bhagadatta, took part in the Kurukshetra
battle (c. 950 B.C. ?). Further to the West, probably in the
valley of Nepal, and in the hill area watered by the Satlaj and
the Bias, beyond Kumaon and Garhwal, penetration by bar-
barous mountain-dwelling Kiratas had taken place about that
time, i.e., c. 1000 B.C., or it may be earlier still. The references
to the Kiratas in the Yajur-veda and the Atharva-v$da have been
given before. Miscegenation with the Kiratas may have started
in the western areas already : a miscegenation anticipating the
process which is still at work in Nepal and elsewhere, or, rather
a miscegenation which is still continuing.

At the time of Buddha, we find the powerful clan or people
of the Licchavis in North Bihar. It has been suggested that
they were a people of Indo-Mongoloid origin. The account of

SOME ANCfENT POINTS OP CONTACT

59

their life and culture as given in the old Buddhist texts certain-
ly shows a number of non-Brahmanical traits : for example,
exposure of the dead, and a modified form of polyandry. They
seem to have abandoned their original Tibeto-Burman speech
for the Aryan, and in this they were like the later Koches of
North Bengal and Ahoms of Assam, when these people took up
Bengali and Assamese and entered into the structure of a
Brahman-organised society. If the Licchavis were really Indo-
Mongoloids, it is no longer possible to find out if they came
from Nepal or from Assam side. In North Bihar, their power
and organisation won for them the status of Kshatriyas, as has
happened in the case of the later Gorkhas. The Licchavi name
became an honoured one, and the founder of the Gupta empire
in the early part of the 4th century A.D. was proud of his
Licchavi connexion, he having married the daughter of a
Licchavi house. In Nepal, we have a Licchavi dynasty ruling
for over five centuries (fronve. 350 to 879 A.D.), as a sort of
precursor of the Newar dynasties of subsequent times. It is
not impossible, as Dines Chandra Sircar has suggested (in the
Vaisali Volume , in Hindi) that the group of eastern trihes like
the Sakyas, the Koliyas, the Licchavis, the V f j i s , the Moriyas,
and others, were ultimately of Mongoloid origin, or were
mixed peoples with a strong Mongoloid element who had
adopted or were adopting the Aryan speech.

The claim of Kshatriyahood made by all these tribes is not
at all a proof of their pure Aryan origin. The non-Aryan
origin or affinities of the Licchavis (along with the two groups
of Mallas in West and East Nepal and the Kbasas, who were
in later time well-known as Mongoloid or mixed peoples of
Nepal and of the lands to its west) is hinted by Manu (X, 22)
who declared them to be Vratyas or debased Kshatriyas.
Brahmanical orthodoxy as typified by Manu, refused to be
influenced here by the power and pre-eminence of the Licchavis
(see Sylvain L6vi, Le Nepal , Vol. I, pp. 87, 88).

If this view is correct, then Buddha himself would be an
Indo-Mongoloid. He would be racially like the Gorkhas of
Nepal. There is, it must be remembered, a good deal in
Buddhism (at least in its outer forms) which goes counter to

60

kirAta- .7 a n a - k rti

Aryanism, particularly Aryan racialism This may well be a
reflex of the race minds and cultural milieus in conflict, cons-
ciously or unconsciously. Thus, in Aryan religion the religious
man as well as householder both wore long hair and beards
(a practice we find among the kinsmen of the Aryans outside
India, e.g., the Iranians, the Slavs, the Spartans and other
ancient Greek tribes, the Celts, the Germans); but the Buddhist
monk was clean-shaven. Buddhist monks were enjoined to
abstain from bedsteads, and were to lie on the ground, whereas
the Aryan habil was to sleep in raised beds. Buddha was,
however, very anxious to have the moral path preached by
him known as the “eightfold Aryan path” ( ariy'affh'artgiko
maggo) : and this solicitude for the ‘Aryan* name would appear
to be on a different footing from the jubilant and rather fervent
pride, racial and patriotic in character, which the Achaemenian
emperors of ancient Persia manifested in their inscriptions.
With Buddha, ariya was more a -moral attribute in the sense of
‘noble* than a racial or national name, such as it was among
the Vedic Aryans and the ancient Iranians — although the racial
contrast between Arya and Dasa or Sudra, i.e., non-Aryan,
persisted, traditionally at least, to a much Inter date than
Buddha. Then, we have to note Buddha's throwing overboard
completely the Vedic sacrifice. Krishna Vasudeva who was a
reformer too, before Buddha, in the 10th century B.C., substi-
tuted the cultivation of mora 1 virtues for Vedic sacrifices, but
he did not seek to suppress the time-honoured Aryan religious
usages. Further, Buddha was democratic and he did not want
his teachings to be confined to the sacred or literary language
of the Brahmans who retained their allegiance to the Vedas —
he wanted his message to reach all and sundry in their own
languages.

It may be questioned if the response given to the teachings
of the Buddha by the Mongoloid peoples of South-Eastern Asia
and of Tibet, Mongolia, China, Korea and Japan had some-
thing racial behind it— at least partially.

Moreover, when already m the Vedas (Yajur-veda and
Atharva-veda) the Kiratas or Indo-Mongoloids of the hills are
known, it would not be unreasonable to assume further that

‘4CLa-GAVYA # AND ANIMAL SACRIFICES

61

there was a likelihood of the Aryan-speaking followers of the
Vedic religion and the Mongoloids with their primitive religion
influencing each other in certain aspects of their religious and
social life. The elaborate nature of later Vedic age sacrifices
when sheep, goats, cows or oxen and horses were killed, sacri-
fices which took up days and in which the householder and his
wife had to take part in a strictly ordered sequence of the cere-
monial, show a strange agreement in both form and spirit with
the elaborate ceremonial of ‘the Feasts of Merit’ like the ‘bull-
killing* sacrifice and ‘the milhan or wild bison killing’ sacrifice
as is still in use among the Ao Nagas (cf. The Ao Nagas by
J, P. Mills, London, 1926, pp. 370fl\). The resemblances
between the Vedic $ula-gavya sacrifice and the Ao Naga mithan
sacrifice are striking : the animal was killed in each by means
of a sharp stake of wood piercing its heart, ft has not yet been
established if like the Ao Nagas and other Naga tribes, and
also like the Kukis and some ofithe North Assam tribes like the
Abors, other Indo-Mongoloids like the Bodes had ever had
similar elaborate animal sacrifices ; but it is exceedingly prob-
able they had. TheNewars, in spite of their Buddhism, have never
abandoned their elaborate and very cruel method of slaughtering
buffaloes, and animal sacrifices by the Bodos and other Indo-
Mongoloids have continued down to our times. The Hindu
Gorkhas in Nepal perform hecatombs of buffalo and goat sacri-
fices before the Sakti roddess particularly, during the second
day of the Durga Puja, and similar goat and buffalo sacrifices
in Bengal and Assam before Durga and Kail have no Aryan
basis or background ; and these may be an inheritance from
the Indo-Mongoloids. Only the method of killing the animal by
decapitation by one blow, may have been a lateHindu (but not
Aryan) innovation. The elaboration of these animal sacrifices
in the later Vedic age on a scale not known to the Indo-
European peoples outside India appears to have developed
within India, and there was always a strain of protest even in
Aryan-speaking society against it all. Some influence of a
submerged Indo-Mongoloid element in this matter, emanating
from the sub-Himalayan tracts in Northern India and in Eastern
India, is not unlikely.

62

kirAta-jana-krti

The following points in the Naga and Kuki ideology show
a noticeable agreement with the Aryan sentiments and prac-
tice in the matter. Among both the Kukis and the Nagas “a
very prominent and important place is always given to the
wife of a man performing sacrificial ceremonies. Indeed, a
Naga widower would be unqualified to perform a feast of
social status.” Then, again, the Nagas and the Kukis have a
series of “graded ‘Feasts of Merit' by which the individual
celebrates and reinforces his prosperity and attempts to infect
with it the whole community.” (Observations of Dr. J. H.
Hutton in N. E. Parry’s work on the Lakhers , London, 1932,
pp, xii, xiii.) At the present day, similar “Feasts of Merit” are
current among the Hindus of Bengal in the shape of the Durga-
pujdy the Kdli-pujd and other festivals mostly Sakta and some
Vaishnava, and among the Musalmans in the form of Milad
Sharifs, in which the entire community is asked to participate
in the house of the person who holds these ‘feasts’.

In the philosophical development of Brahmanism, the most
noteworthy things are the ideas of Karma and Sarpsdra (the
effect of one’s actions and transmigration of the soul), which are
to be taken together. The Indo-Europeans did not develop
ideas like those connoted by Karma and Sarpsara, to start with.
The Indo-European notions of life after death we find among
the Vedic Aryans, the Greeks, the Germanic peoples, and
others. These centre round a Pitf-loka or an Elysium or a
Valhalla, a place for heroes and good men and the fathers and
ancestors who of course were both good men and heroes. The
moral basis of the law of Karma and of metempsychosis was
not yet developed among the primitive Indo-Aryans when they
came to India. But in India, contact and commingling with
the Dravidians and the Austrics and then with the Indo-
Mongoloids brought in a new conception — a synthesis, in this
matter, in the spiritual perception of the descendants of the
Aryans, pure and mixed ; and the result was the doctrine of
Karma , which appears to have become accepted among most
classes of Indians during the first half of the first millennium
B.C. The Mongoloid belief, which is noticeable among many
primitive tribes speaking Tibelo-Burman and other Sino-

THE INDO-MONGOLOIDS IN NEPAL

63

Tibetan languages, in man possessing more 60 ulsthan one may
well have assisted in the evolution of the idea of metempsy-
chosis in India.

In the story of the five Pan^ava brothers having married
one wife in common, Draupadi, some have seen an influence
of the Indo-Mongoloids, considering that fraternal polyandry is
found among the Tibetan Mongoloids, and among some Hindus
claiming to be Kshatriyas in the Simla Hills. Particularly we
are reminded in this connexion that the Pandavas themselves
were born in a polyandrous though supernatural atmosphere,
and they passed their early life in the Himalayas, in a possible
Indo-Mongoloid environment, in tracts where mixed Aryan
and Indo-Mongoloid Khasas and other tribes had their origin
and home. This particular matter remains an unsolved prob-
lem in Indo-Aryan legend and history, and considering the
fact that racial mixture was quite common in the Mahabharaia
period (i.e., c. 10th century B.C.), Indo-Mongoloid contact and
influence here is not unlikely.

45. The Indo-Mongoloids in Nepal : the name
‘Nepal' (NepAla)

The Mahabhdrata tradition makes Bhagadatta, a Mleccha
or Indo-Mongoloid king of Western Assam, Prdg-jyoti$a (later
Kama-rupa ), participate (with his golden or yellow-complexioned
Kirata and Clna warriors on the Kaurava side) in the Kuru-
kshetra battle and be killed by the Pap^ava hero Bhima.
Bhagadatta fought from an elephant, and the pre-eminance of
Assam for elephants is well known. Leaving aside the possible
but problematic • connexion of an Indo-Mongoloid king like
Bhagadatta with happenings in the heart of Aryavarta in the
10th century B.C., and the unsolved question of the Licchavis
and other possibly Hinduised Mongoloid tribes of Eastern
India in the 7th-6th century B.C., and also the Nepalese Maha-
yana Buddhistic tradition of the Maurya emperor Asoka having
visited Nepal and founded the city of Pafan or Lalita-pafana
with its four stupas still intact, we first find ourselves on firmer

64

kirAta-jana-k^ti

ground about the Indo-Mongoloid doings in the Indian scene
in Nepal in the 4th-5th century A.D. We (hen find that the
great Gupta emperor, Samudra-gupta, obtained the homage of
‘the frontier ruler of Nepal’ (pratyanta-Nepala-nrpati), who in
all likelihood belonged to the Surya-vam$i Licchavi clan, which
was spread from Nepal to Bihar and the Eastern United
Provinces, An inscription of a king of this dynasty, that of
Mana-deva, dating from c. 493 A.D,, has been found, in the
precincts of the Changu Narayana temple in Nepal Valley.

The very late chronicles of Nepal, in the Tibeto-Burman
Newari language, and in their Indo-Aryan Parbatiya or
Gorkhali adaptations, represent a traditional school of Nepal
history which was set up in the court of the Nepal (Newar)
kings in the 14th century. These may have some germ of
historicity in them, but they are on the whole generally
unreliable. Various derivations of the name Nepal ( Nepala )
were proposed by the Pandits of Nepal in medieval times, both
Buddhist and Brahman. It would appear, however, that the
name came from that of a Tibeto-Burman speaking tribe, the
ancestors of the present-day Newar people, and consists of two
elements, a prefix Ne- t of uncertain meaning (it may be the
name of some hero-king or priest among the tribe) and the
proper tribal name Pal or Bal , the meaning of which in Newari
is lost, although in Tibetan the word bal means ‘wool’. The
Tibetans call the Nepalis, i.e., the Newaris particularly, Bal-po ,
i.e., ‘the Bal- men’, (cf. Sylvain L6vi, Le Nepal , Paris 1905,
Vol. I, pp. 66-68). It may also be questioned if Pal-pa , the
name of the region immediately to the west of the Nepal Valley,
the home of the Newars, is connected with this Pal or Bal.
Ne-pal became with the Sanskrit and Prakrit using Indians of
North India Nepala during the period round about Christ, if
not as early as the time of Asoka, or earlier still. Already in
Kaufilya’s Artha-Scistra , the original of which may go back to
the 4th century B.C., we have mention of sheep’s wool ( avikam )
blankets of Nepal make ( Naipdlikam ) (cf. Radhagovinda
Basak, History of North-Eastern India , Calcutta, 1934, p, 239).
In Newari, the sounds of r and / interchange. Through later
phonetic change, Nepal became Newar, and in modern Newari,

EARLY DYNASTIES OF NEPAL

65

the loss of the final r has further modified the name, particular-
ly as the name of the Nevva r oeople, to New ah and Newa .

The name of Nepal occurs as Nek-pal in the Ledger of
the Armenian merchant Hovhannes Joughayetsi, who visited
Nepal in 1687-1692. (See article on ‘Joughayetsi’s Ledger’, in
the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta for August, 1969).
This form is used by some of the early European writers on
Nepal: the */:’ in Nek-pal is unexplained. (See also Sylvain L6vi,
Le Nepal , Vol. I, pp. 86, 184).

46. Early Dynasties of Nepal : The GopAla or AbhIra
Kings: The Kirata Kings with non-Aryan Names

According to these Newari chronicles — Varpsavalls or ‘Dy-
nasty Lists 1 , Nepal was inhabited and ruled over by tribes of
‘Gopalas’ and ‘Abhiras’ or ‘cowherds’ in most ancient times, and
names of a number of kings of these dynasties or tribes are
given, names which are all in Sanskrit. (See Sylvain L6vi,
op . c/7., Vol. I, pp. 72-74). We do not know how to take these
names. They probably refer in a vague way to Hinduised groups
of mixed Austric and Dravidian and probably also lndo-
Mongoloid speakers who were in occupation of Nepal Valley
prior to a wholesale influx of purer Mongoloids — the Nepal or
Ncwar people, probably sometime before the Christian era, who
are known to the Varps avails as Kiratas . Then came a line of
Kirata kings. The Vatpsdva Ts give some 26 or 29 names of
these Kirata kings. The possibility of some historicity subsist-
ing behind the Vatpsavalis becomes a probability when we find
that most of their names are non-Sanskritic, although they have
not yet been identified with names or words in any Sino-Tibetan
language. (Cf. the lists in Levi, op . cit. t Vol. I, pp. 78-79 : names
like Yalamba, Pambi or Pabi , Dhaskam , Balamba , Jiteddsti ,
Galinja , Puska or Punchem, Thuhka or Thumu, Kemke , Gighri
or Jeghri , Luk, Thor , Gunja , Kesu or Jus a, Sungu , Sansa , Gun -
nanja , Thimbu). These Kirata kings were undoubtedly prepar-
ing the way for Newar and other Indo-Mongoloid domination
5

66

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

in the affairs of Nepal and for their fullest participation in the
development of its Hindu (Buddhist or Brahmanical) culture in
the centuries to come. The Vamsavalis have sought to synchro-
nise some of these Kirata kings of Nepal with Indian Aryan
kings, legendary and historical : e.g., with the Pandavas, with
Buddha and with Asoka. The Kirata rulers had their capital at
Gokarna in the north of the Nepal Valley.

47. The Soma-vamsI and Surya-vamsi (Licchavi) Kings of
Nepal, From Bihar : Amsu-varman

The Kiratas were suppressed by a new dynasty, this time
Hindu, which came from Bihar and conquered Nepal, establish-
ing their capital in the extieme south of the valley at Godavari.
They were a Soma-vamsi or Lunar line of kings, five in number;
and after them we have the Surya-vamsi or Solar Licchavi dy-
nasty, with whom the historical period of Nepal begins. We
know something about the Licchavi kings of Nepal from their
inscriptions and their coins : they ruled from c. 350 A.D. to the
end of the 9th century A.D. The Cangu Narayana Temple
Pillar Inscription of Mana-deva of this dynasty tells us some-
thing about the earlier kings. Buddhism and Brahmanism
(Vishnu and &iva worship) were their cults, and during their
rule the Vaishnava as well as &aiva and 5akta shrines of Nepal
came into prominence, by 650 A D, particularly the shrine of
Siva PaSupati-natha.

While the Licchavis were formally in power, Mahasamanta
AmSu-varman ot the Thakuri dynasty came into great promi-
nence as de facto ruler of Nepal, during the first half of the 7th
century A.D. Amsu-varman, in spite of his Sanskrit name, was
in all likelihood of Indo-Mongoloid origin. During the first
half of the 7th century, Northern India was ruled by Emperor
Harsha-vardhana of Kanauj, and the Deccan by Pulikesin
Calukya. In Tibet, during the same period, ruled the national
hero-king of the Tibetans, Sron-btsan-sgam-po, who had made
Nepal his vassal. Sron-btsan-sgam-po married Bhriku(i, a

INDO-MONGOLOID RULERS, 7TH-8TH CENTURIES

67

daughter of Arpsu-varman. This Nepal princess, probably
Newar in race, married to a Tibetan king, was largely instru-
mental in converting her husband to the Buddhist faith, which
led to the Tibetans as a people to become Buddhist, and later
on to modify the Mahayana Buddhism of their adoption to
Lamaism, or Lamaistic Buddhism, in the atmosphere of their
original Bon religion.

The Tibetan king also married a Princess from the Imperial
T‘ang House of China. His Indian queen Bhpkuti came to be
known as Syama or Dark Tara , and the Chinese Princess whose
name in Chinese was Wen Chhing , and in Tibetan Kong-jo t
as Sita y i.e., White or Fair Tara. These matrimonial alliances
strengthened Tibet’s religious and cultural links with both
India and China.

The Licehavis regained their power shortly after the death
of Amsu-varman and of Jishnu-gupta, another chief who had
stepped into the place of Am^u-varman after he had passed
away. The cult of Matsyendra-natha was introduced into Nepal
in 657 A.D. during the reign of the Licchavi king Narendra-deva.
In this way the specific Nepali character of Mahayana Bud-
dhism was taking shape with its rites and festivals under
the Licehavis. Soma-deva, first quarter of the 8th century,
married into the Maukhari family of India, his queen
Vatsa-dcvl being a daughter of the Maukhari king Bhoga-
varman and a granddaughter of Aditya-sena, a later Gupta
king of Magadha ( c . 672-73 A.D.)* Soma-deva's son Jaya-deva
married an Assam-North Bengal princess, Rajyamati, the
daughter of Harsha-deva who is described as belonging to
the royal house of Bhagadatta and as king of Gau<^a or North
and West Bengal, O^ra or North Orissa, Kalinga or South
Orissa and the Telugu country and Kosala or Eastern Central
Provinces and Central United Provinces This Harsha-deva of
the Nepal record is believed to be the same as the Sri-Harsha
mentioned in the Tejpur plate of Vana-mala, and as Harsha-
varman of the plate of Harjara, as a king of the Sala-stambha
dynasty of Assam (c. 650-800 A.D.). We have thus two of the
important Hindu Mongoloid kingdoms in Northern and North-
eastern India united by matrimony as early as the middle of the

68 KIRA'I A-JANA-KRTI

8th century A.D. Similar intermarriages among the Indo-
Mongoloid princely families took place later on.

48. Nfp.al in the 8th 9th Centuries : Tibeto-Nepalesl

Relations

We need not enter into details of Nepal history — the work
of Sylvain Levi and that of Hern Chandra Roy ( Dynastic History
of North India , Calcutta, 1 9 3 1 , V o 1 . I) have attempted to find >ut
a path in the jungle presented by the Vamsdxalis on the one hand
and by the inscriptions and other positive historical references
on the other. According to Tibetan and Chinese statements,
the Tibetan kings are said to have been suzerains over Nepal
throughout the 8th century. The Tibetans were in the height
of their power in the 7th-8th century, from Nepal to Slien-si,
and Urumtsi and Kucha. In the Lagantol inscription of king
Siva-datta of Nepal (? 714 A.D.), we find mention of a Hhotta-
vifti or a Tibetan tax or forced labour. Here we have perhaps
the oldest employment of the term Bh6ta(<Bod~ Tibetan) in
a Sanskrit document — barring the name of Thon-in i Sambhota
or The Good Bhdta\ the Tibetan scholar contemporaneous with
Srori-btsan-sgam-po who brought the Indian alphabet to Tibet
and employed it for the Tibetan language.

There is other evidence of Tibetan overlordship in Nepal.
During the second half of the 8th century, Jayapida, king of
Kashmir, invaded Eastern India as far as Bengal, and he inva-
ded Nepal, but the Nepal king Aramudi fought with him and
took him prisoner, although Jayapida later escaped. Sylvain
Levi suggested that the Nepal king Aramudi was really a
Tibetan — his name is not Sanskrit, Tts strange consonance may
hide vt Tibetan name' (Sylvain Levi, op. nt., Yol. H, p. 177). It
could however be a local Indo-Mongoloid name : a conclusion
that Aramudi was a Tibetan is perhaps not warranted from the
assumption that the name is Tibetan. Tibet became torn by
religious wars which started with the accession of king Glang-
parma m 838 who began a violent anti- Buddhistic regime m
favour of the pre-Buddhist sc Bon religion of the country. This
led to the demra Uou of Tibuan power. According to Hern

NBWAR CULTURE — BUDDHISTIC, BRAHMANICAL

69

Chandra Roy, it was probably the assertion of the Nepalese
and their throwing off the Tibetan yoke that was signalised by
the foundation of a new era in Nepal from 879 A.D.

49. The Thakuri Kings of Nepal, 9th- 12th Centuries :

Nepal Becomes Culturally an Integral
Part of India

The Thakuri dynasty reigned in Nepal from the 9th to the
end of the 12th century. In the 11th century, the line was bifur-
cated into the Thakuris of Nayakot (1046-1 197) and the Thaku-
ris of Pa(an (1080-1098). We do not get much positive infor-
mation about the Thakuri kings of Nepal, except a few inscrip-
tions and references from colophons of mss. written or copied
in Nepal, particularly during the 10th and 11th centuries. The
Thakuri period was one of very close cultural connexion of
Nepal with India (Bihar and Bengal) on the one hand, and with
Tibet and China on the other. New towns were built, like
Kantipura (later Kath-mando or Kath-maro— Kas(ha-mai?dapa)
and Sanku, and old towns were renovated, like Pa(an. The
plastic arts and trade flourished exceedingly, Sanskrit learning
was greatly advanced, and the corpus of the Buddhist Sanskrit
literature of the Mahayana school was copied and preserved in
the monastery libraries ( balials , to Is) of Nepal. The latest deve-
lopments of the Mahayana in Bengal and Bihar found a conge-
nial soil in Nepal, and Nepalese scholars. Tibeto-Burman
speakers, possibly mostly Newars, went to the Buddhist univer-
sities of India like Nalandii and Vikrama-sila for higher studies.
Indian scholars of note also would come . to Nepal, like Vajra-
kirtti (end of the 10th century), and Vagisvara-kirtti (1st half of
the 11th century) who settled down in Nepal to perform his
Tantric sddhand or spiritual and ritualistic exercises. We hear
of eminent Nepali scholars in India, like Ratna-kirtti, Vairocana
and Kanaka-sri; and Nepalese scholar-monks like Pham-mthin
and his brother Jnana-vajra were great preachers of the Maha-
yana in Nepal. The indo-Mongoloids of Nepal may be said
to have found themselves as a distinctive section of the Indian

70

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

people, sharing in and enriching the Brahman-Buddhist culture
they adopted, from the time of the Thakuris. The outward
paraphernalia of religion — the gorgeousness of ritual and cere-
monial and processions (ydtras), etc., became established in the
temple of many a deity in Nepal, Bvahmanical or Buddhist, like
the ydtras of Matsyendra-natha, of Lokesvara(~ Avalokitesvara)
and of Pasupati ( = Siva). The all-round development of cul-
tural life in Nepal which was in full swing under the Thakuris
entered its apogee under the Malla kings, Newars equally with
the Thakuris, in the 17th century in Nepal. After the irruption
of the Turks in Bihar and Bengal and their destruction of
monasteries and temples and massacre of scholars and monks
as at Nalanda, Nepal gave asylum to scholars and others fleeing
the Muslim Turki terror with their books and their gods. This
fresh and large-scale advent of refugee scholars and artists from
India — Bihar and Bengal — gave rise to a sort of Renaissance in
the artistic and religious life of Nepal from the 13th century
onwards. The importance of the sacred places of Nepal also
grew — Pasupati-natha, Guhyesvari and Carigu-narayana attracted
Hindus from India, and Svayambhu-natha Buddhists from Tibet.
The district of Palpa was then part of the Nepal kingdom. The
scholarly world has to thank Newar scholars of this period for
having kept up the study of Sanskrit all through and for having
been largely responsible for the preservation for posterity of
the Mahayana Buddhist literature in Sanskrit.

50. The Karnataka Kings : Their Cultural Contribution

A new royal dynasty with fresh cultural elements came to
Nepal about the middle of the 12th century, when the Karnata
kings became established at Simraon in Southern Nepal. The
Karnatas were Marathi or Kannada-speaking barons or mili-
tary chiefs from the Deccan who followed the victorious arms
of Vikramaditya, the son of the Calukya emperor Somesvara I,
(1040-1069 A.D.) into North-eastern India. Some of these carved
out principalities for themselves in West Bengal and Bihar and
elsewhere. The Suras and the Senas of West Bengal were such

THE NEWAR MALLA RULERS TO 1768 A.D.

71

Karnata houses, and Nanya-deva who founded a dynasty in
Mithiia and Nepal was one such Kannada chieftain. In certain
matters, Newari and Buddhist Nepal came in touch with the
Brahmanical culture of Dravidian Deccan, and we have to note
the presence of a sacred place named Godavari in South Nepal,
as well as the establishment of the shrine of Tulja-mata or
Tulaja-mata or Taleju-ma, a Sakti goddess held in high esteem
by the Newars, who later became the tutelary deity of the Malla
(Newar) dynasty of Kantipura (Kathman^o) in the 17th cen-
tury : the goddess was equally the specially worshipped deity of
the Maithila dynasty started by Marisirpha at Simraon c. 1325
A.D. We have to note that Amba Bhavani of Tulajapura in
the Andhra State is one of the most important &akta shrines in
the Deccan, and the great &ivaji, hero of Hindu national revival,
was a devotee of this deity in the 17th century. The institution
of Deccan Brahmans (Mahara§triyas) as priests in charge of
Pasupati-natha was probably a, direct result of this Karnataka
connexion. The Karnataka rule did not extend beyond the
first quarter of the 14th century. By that time a new dynasty,
a national one for the Newars of Nepal, established itself, after
one of the earlier founders of this new line, Jayasthiti-malla,
had married Rajalla-devi, a princess of the Karnataka house.

51. The Malla Kings of Nepal, to 1768 A.D.

This was the Malla dynasty, which, in its three branches,
ruled Nepal Valley up to the conquest of the country by the
Gorkhas, virile group of Brahmanised and mixed Mongoloids
with Brahman and Kshatriya upper classes from the plains,
whose leading houses were admitted to be of Rajput blood.
The Mallas however, were related to the Licchavis, and they
were in all likelihood a mixed Indian and Indo-Mongoloid
people speaking the Tibeto-Burman Newari language, but culti-
vating at the same time Sanskrit "kI the advanced Aryan lan-
guage, which were contiguous to Nepal— Maithili and Bengali
and Kosali or Hasiern Hindi, and the earlier Apabhramsa. The
later Mallas appear originally to have belonged to the tracts tothc

72

KIRATA-MNA-KRTI

west of Nepal Valley. The chief source of our knowledge about
the Malla kings are the Varjis avail chronicles, which for the
Malta period would appear to be largely authentic. These
chronicles (e. g., the one translated by Daniel Wright from a
Parbatiya or Gorkhali version) form delightful reading with
their copious references to the religious and social conditions
of the people.

52. The Brahmanical Malla Kings of Dullu and Jumla
in West Nepal, 13th- 17th Centuries

We have to note that there was another Malla dynasty,
older than the Newar Mallas of Kantipura (Kathmandu), Patan,
Kirttipur and Bhatgaonin East Nepal, and quite distinct in origin
from the Newari Mallas, which formed a powerful dynasty of
Nepal rulers whose history startpd from the beginning of the 1 3th
century (c. 1201) with Nagamalla. These earlier Mallas of West
Nepal had their important towns at Dullu and Jumla, in be-
tween the Karnali and Bhari Ganga rivers. They were not of
Kirata origin — they were Aryan- speaking Khasas of the Hima-
layas, strengthened by Kshatriya (Rajput)emigrantsfrom India;
and at Dullu, Jumla and other centres, they built noteworthy
towns with temples, and left a large number of inscriptions in
Sanskrit. They ruled from the 13th century — their power
dwindling during the 17thand 18th. With their forces of power-
ful cavalry, these Hindu Mallas conquered a considerable part
of Western Tibet, and kept it under their subjection. The descen-
dants of these Mallas are still found, with fragments of their
old tradition, and now they have merged among the Khas-kura
or Gorkhali speaking people of Nepal. (See Giuseppe Tucci —
Nepal : The Discovery of the Malla , London, George Allen and
Unwin Ltd., 1962).

The highest achievements of the Newars as an Indo-Mongo-
loid people who had adopted both Buddhism and Brahmanism
withGangctic culture took place under the Mallas of East Nepal
particularly in the 17th century. After Yaksa-malla’s time,
c . 1474 A.D., the single kingdom of Nepal was split up into four

NEWARI LITERATURE

73

small states of Bhatgaon, Banapa, Kathmando and Patan. Thus
divided, the Newars were unable to resist their racial kinsmen
but religious and political foes the Gorkhas from West Nepal,
and finally they succumbed to Gorkha power in 1768.

53. Newari Literature

The present day Newars call this language Nepala-bhasha.
The Tibeto-Burman people of the Nepal Valley seem to have
been very much mixed up with Aryan speakers from the south,
and we have, like the present-day Gorkhas, quite early in the
history of Nepal the evolution of some mixed Tibeto-Burman-
Aryan tribes or peoples, who called themselves Kshatriyas but
who evidently were mixed Aryo-Mongoloids in race and speech
and culture. Thus we have in North Bihar the Vrijjis or Vajjis,
the Licchavis, and the £akyas or Koliyas, in the Nepal-Mithila
border and also in the interior of Nepal. These people appear to
have been largely of Tibeto-Burman origin with an Aryan veneer
in the upper classes, and they developed a mixed language
which was Aryan in its basis, although very largely Tibeto-
Burman in syntax and vocabulary. But they had come within
the orbit of Indian civilisation and thought-world both Brah-
manical and Buddhist. Some of the remoter tribes had main-
tained their Tibeto-Burman language, which was an earlier
form of the present-day Newari. But this language also became
saturated with Sanskrit and other Aryan elements. They became
followers of Buddhism, at least from the time of Asoka. They
studied Sanskrit and Pali and other Aryan languages, and their
greatest contribution to the culture of India was that this anci-
ent Nepala or Newar people has been instrumental in preserv-
ing large masses of Mahayana Buddhist literature in what is
known as Hybrid Sanskrit or Buddhist Sanskrit. This literature
has not been found in other parts of India, and it was very
largely translated into the languages of the various Mahayana
Buddhist peoples — into Chinese, Korean and Japanese, Tibetan
and Mongo!. King Amsu- varman of Nepal, who ruled about
650 A.D., had close connection with both Tibet and China. His

74

KIR ATA- JANA- KRTI

daughter Bhrikuti was married to the Tibetan king Srong-btsan-
sgam-po. As already Nepal had become a land of Indian
culture, there are Sanskrit inscriptions which are found in
Nepal from this period onwards.

The masses of the people in Nepal Valley unquestionably
spoke Newari. But no literature in Newari has been preserved
which goes back beyond the second half of the 14th century.
We have the oldest specimen of a written Newari text dating
from 1207 A.D., which is given in the Nepal era as 327. This is
a deed of grant found in Ganabahal, Kathmandu. The previous
history of Newari for over 2000 years is virtually a blank,
although the Newari people studied Sanskrit and preserved a
Sanskrit literature in the ancient East Indian script — the Ku(ila.
We have however evidence of quite a flourishing literature in
later times in Newari from a whole range of manuscripts which
have come down to us, dating from the second half of the 14th
century. All these manuscripts, as much as manuscripts in
Sanskrit, are written in the same old Newari script, which is
almost identical with that of Mithila, Assam and Bengal and of
Orissa in the earliest period.

The oldest book in Newari so far found is a manuscript on
plam-leaf, giving a Sanskrit-Newari version of the first two
books of the Hitopadesa (dated Nepal era 481^1360 A.D.),
now preserved in Berlin. The Gopal-raj Vatpsavali, a Sanskrit-
Newari dynastic chronicle, of which a portion is in Newari,
has been published in some extracts by Luciano Petech from
Rome in 1958, and by Yogi Narahari Natha in Nepal, and
then by Dr. D. R. Regmi from Calcutta (in 1968) in its entirety.
These are our oldest specimens of Newari literature so far
found.

The other oldest Newari texts so far available in print are some
poems in the four anthologies of Newari songs (poems going
back to the old Malla period, 1200-1380 A.D.), three of which
have already been published from Kathmandu the Pulangu Me,
the Malla-Sdha-Katayd Me , the Matenuva Me , and the Sichihi-
Nara-Sitphci-Mcillayd Me. There are two other Newari works
going back to 1380 and 1385 — the Vicitra-Kdniikdvadanoddhrta ,
edited and published in Roman transcription with an English

N EWART LITERATURE

75

translation and Glossary and Index, by the Danish scholar
Hans Joergcnsen from the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Bri-
tain and Ireland in London in the year 1931, and this dates
from 1873-74. This is a Ncwari translation of a Mahayana Bud-
dhist work on Buddhist legends. The manuscript used dates
only from 1873, but the work is considerably older and may be
of the 17th century. Long before the publication of these works,
we have August Conrady’s Sanskrit-Newari Dictionary published
in the German Oriental Society's Journal (ZDMG), from Berlin in
1893. This is the firstconsiderable work on Newari. In 1936, Hans
Joergensen brought out from Copenhagen his Dictionary of
Classical Ncwari (pp. 1-13, 17-178). Two stories from the Fe/tf/a-
pancavimsati as preserved in a manuscript dating from 1801 were
also printed by Joergensen in Roman characters, in 1921 from
Berlin. Other early texts in Newari in manuscripts from the end
ofthe 17th century to recent years in the 19th century consist mostly
of translations from Sanskrit works-*- Buddhist Mahayana texts, as
w'ell as of some Sanskrit works like the Ndrada Smrti , the Hito-
padesa , and the Madana-Vinoda , which is a religious romance,
and the Cdnakya-sara-sangraha , the Vaidydhga or a book on
Ayurvedic medicine, the Suka-saptati or the Seventy Tales told
by a Parrot, etc. A full inventory of early Newari literature,
and a study of the works available in it, have not yet been
made.

There is a whole seris of dramas in the Newari literary
tradition, from the beginning of the 17th century, in the courts
of the Newar kings, — on Hindu Puranic themes, with the spee-
ches and songs in Maithili, Bengali or Awadhi, but stage direc-
tions in Newari, a good many of which have already been
published by German and Indian scholars.

Mention is to be made of three Newari plays entirely in
Newari, which were printed before Joergensen's work — (i) the
Ratnesvara-Prddurbhdva . (ii) the Vikrama-carita Ndfak (both
of the 18th century), and (iii) the Mahdsattva Ndfak (19th
century).

After the conquest ofthe valley of Nepal ( 1 768-69), including
its four beautiful cities of Kantipura or Kathmando, Kfrttipur,
Pajan or Lalita-patan, and Bhatgaon, during the second half of

76

kirata-jana-krti

the 18th century, by the Hindu Gorkhas under their king
Prithwi Narayan Sah (1723-1775) from Gorkha in Western
Nepal, the Buddhist Newars, who were the original people of
Central Nepal and who had built up the culture of Nepal, suf-
fered from a great check and they were placed under a number
of disabilities. Their Mahayana and Tantrika Buddhism was
not interfered with, but all patronage to their language and its
literature was stopped, and Khas-kura (or Nepali, or Gorkhali),
an Aryan speech allied to Hindi, as the official and home langu-
age of the conquerors, come to have a predominance over all
the Tibeto-Burman Hill Speeches. Literature in Newari, even
though it was the most advanced speech of Nepal all through,
languished for nearly 200 years. Its own script was never cast
in type, and Nagari, in which Gorkhali is written and printed,
took up its place. Towards the end of the rule of the Rana
family in Nepal (1846-1951), there was even an attempt among
some sections of the ruling Gorkhas to suppress and if possible
to stamp out Newari. No Newari was permitted to be taught in
schools, and no Newari books were allowed to be printed; and
even Newari songs were officially banned in public.

After the restoration of the Royal Family of Nepal, the Sah
Dynasty — and the removal of the all-powerful family of the
Prime Minister (the Ranas) from the scene, by 1 955 Newari with
the other Tibeto-Burman languages came to its own. Newari
began to be taught in schools and colleges, and was recognised
in the University of Kathmandu (Tribhuvan University) as a
language at par with Gorkhali or Parbatiya, Maithili, Hindi,
etc.; Newari was introduced as a principal language in the B.A.
(Pass and Honours), and M A. courses were contemplated in
Newari. Newari books and papers began to be published
without any difficulty. The result was that quite a number of
Newari books have begun to come out.

We have now a Modern Phase of Newari Literature which
has been taken up quite enthusiastically by some of the edu-
cated Newari people. Present-day or current Newari Literature
follows in the main the general trend of literature in Parbatiya
and Hindi and Bengali, only there are books on Buddhism,
both Hinayana and Mahayana, which are being brought out in

NEWARI LITERATURE

77

Ncwari as its speakers are mostly Buddhist. The first great
writer in Newari in the present age was the poet Siddhi-das
(1867-1929), who was greatly influenced by the literary and
cultural renaissance in India. He visited Benares and Calcutta,
and was particularly under the influence of Sw'ami Vivekananda.
His best works are Sajjatx-hriday and Sarva-bandhu. Among
present-day Newari writers one person can be singled out : he
is a very distinguished poet, and also an outstanding prose
writer of Newari, Sri Chittadhar Upasak (‘Hriday’). He is one
of the leaders of the present-day Newari revival in literature.
Some eleven volumes of poems (of which some like the
Degah or ‘Pagoda’ have English translations), besides short
stories, essays, one-act dramas, etc., from his works, have been
published, and his most important work so far is a long epic
or narrative poem ( mahdkavya ) in adevotional and romantic vein
on the lifc-of the Buddha — the Sugata-Saurabha (Nepal Year
1069= 1942 A.D.). This is a*poem of about 7000 lines, in 19
cantos, with illustrations by the Newari artist Chandramani
Maske, and it gives in beautiful modern Newari the life of
Buddha, based on the Lalita-Vistcira and other Buddhist Sanskrit
texts. His other poetical works are very well-known. He visited
China, and he published a fine book on his Chinese travels
{Mahacine Nepala-Samskrti) in Newari in 1958.

Other Newari writers are coming to the forefront. There
is a Nepal Bhasha Parishad for the developement of Newari
literature in Kathmandu. Over thirty books have already been
published by the Parishad , and one of these is the Nepal- Bhd -
sdya Nahli Kavitd or ‘Poems of To-day in the Newar Speech*
(1958), giving poems from 21 men and women poets of Newari,
with translation and biographical notes. Tirtharaj Tuladhar
is a prominent writer of prose. His Akhe is a volume of 29
short stories from different national literatures of the world,
translated from English versions (published Nepal Year 1085
= 1968 A.D.).

The position of Newari as one among the many modern
Indian languages is now assured, and we can look forward to
its development and still greater development in literature.

(In “Indian Literatures” VolXIV,No.3, for September 1971,

78

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

pp. 5-42, Sahitya Akademi , New Delhi, I brought out a Note
on ‘Newari Literature’, pp. 13-17. This was tentative, and
quite incomplete, with some mistakes. Sri Kamal P. Malla
of Kathmandu drew my attention to them from a letter to me
from Edinburgh which has been published in the next number
of the “Indian Literature”, Vol. XV, no. 3, 1972, pp. 1 10-114.
The above note incorporates Sri Malla’s corrections).

54. Literatures in the Other Tibeto-Burman
Speeches of Nepal

Among the other Himalayan Languages of the Tibeto-
Burman family, the most important are the Tibetan dialects of
Sikkim and Bhutan. The Sikkim dialect is known as Dai-
jong-ke , and the Bhotan one as Lho-ke. They ai£ modifica-
lions of the U (Dbus) or Lhasa-^peech of Central Tibet. There
is not much cultivation of Den-jong-ke and Lho-ke , no original
literature in them, as these dialects are looked upon as being
just forms of Tibetan, and Tibetan is generally studied and
cultivated.

The Lepcha dialect is current in the State of Sikkim and
in Darjeeling district. Till recently its immediate affinities
were not known, but now it has been connected by Robert
Shafer with the distant Naga Group of the Tibeto-Burman
speech-family in the east of Assam. But the general History
and Development of this branch of Tibeto-Burman are not
clear. The Lepchas were mainly Buddhists, although many
of them have now become Christians. The Lepcha monks, in
the Tibetan tradition, have a distinctive literature of Buddhist
religious texts and law books. The Christian missionaries
have also translated portions of the Bible, and they have sought
to create a literature of Christian hymns, side by side with Bud-
dhist hymns. Lepcha has an alphabet of its own which is now
falling into disuse. It was evidently inspired by the Tibetan
script, but it is rather different from it. King Chakdor Namgye
of Sikkim, born in 1686, is said to have created this alphabet
out of a patriotic Lepcha feeling. The Lepchas are now on

NEWAR CULTURE

79

the decline, and they are merging among the Hindu Nepalis as
well as other neighbouring peoples, and their literary life is
almost at a stand-still. In Sikkim, an attempt is now made
to revive the teaching of Lepcha in schools in its own script.

The Kirantis, the Rais and other tribes of Eastern
Nepal have got a little oral or folk literature. An interesting
work is the collection of Kiranti religious and mythological
traditions, which has been published under the title of Kirdt-Mun-
dhum or Kirat-ko Ved y i.e., the Religious and Social as well as
Historical Traditions and Usages of the Kiranti people, collec-
ted in the Kiranti language and published in the Nagari charac-
ter with a Nepali (Gorkhali) translation, from Patna in 1971
by Iman Singh Chemjong, B.A. (page 108).

Other Himalayan dialects have no literature worth men-
tioning.

55. Newar Culture, Particularly Under the Mallas

The Newars were quite remarkable in many matters, particu-
larly the plastic arts (painting, calligraphy, sculpture, bronze and
metal casting, wood-carving and architecture, gem-cutting, etc.)
and in textiles. It took them a little long to discover their own
language and to write serious literature and inscriptions in it— in
the second half of the 14th century. But they produced the oldest
literature extant in any Sino-Tibetan language within the fron-
tiers of India (the only rivals of Newari are Ahom and Mcithei
or Manipuri). This literature was in quite a flourishing state in
the 1 7th- 18th centuries, but its stream almost dried up through
neglect, apathy and persecution, particularly during the present
century. It is indeed a great testimony to the vitality of Newari
culture that in recent years, hand in hand with a revival of Bud-
dhism under the inspiration of Ceylon and Bengal (with the dis-
covery of the Hinayana form of the religion through the study
of Pali by Newar scholars), a revival of literary effort in Newari
has started, and this revival shows great promise. Mention has
been made of a very fine narrative poem named the Sugata-Sdura-
bha on the life of Buddha in 19 cantos running up to 355 pages

80

KIRATA-JANA-KRT!

by Cittadhar Upasaka ‘Hriday’ which has been published in 1948,
with illustrations by a Newari artist Candramani Maske ; and
from Benares and Kalimpong, which have become centres of
Newari literary activities, original works, religious and secular
poems, stories and translations from the Pali and Sanskrit, are
now steadily coming out. Long predominance of Sanskrit and
of the Middle and New Indo-Aryan vernaculars — of Prakrit and
Apabhramsa, and of Bengali, Maithili, Kosali and latterly
Paibatiya (or Khas-kura or Gorkhali) in the valley of Nepal,
has imposed upon Newari its very large percentage of Aryan
words, Sanskrit and vernacular Indo-Aryan. Newari has now
come in line with the modern Indian languages (excepting Urdu)
in going to Sanskrit for all its higher words. Newari was
written in the local Nepal modification of the Kutila or Eastern
form of the script current all over North India up to the 7th
century — a script from which developed also the Maithili-
Bengali-Assamese and Oriya alphabets. But as the Newari
script was never put in type, Devanagari, in which Gorkhali
and Hindi as well as Sanskrit arc written, is now employed in
printing Newari books. So that one may say that Newari has
entered into the community of script with Hindi, Gorkhali and
Marathi, and Rajasthani, Gujarati and Maithili, and to some
extent Panjabi also. The intimate culture of Sanskrit by the
New iri married Buddhist priests, a sort of Buddhist Brahmans
( BZrci< Vandra) and lay scholars ( Vajrdcarya ) could only have
a direct and a natural influence in shaping the orientation of
the Newari speech towards Sanskrit.

The literature of Newari has its own special importance,
with its Vamsdvalis or Dynastic Lists and Chronicles, and its
translation of Buddhist texts from Sanskrit. A History of
Newari Literature still remains to be written ; and some young
Newar scholars, trained in Europe, have taken the matter in
hand. (See, in this connexion, the Section on Newari Litera-
ture in Suniti Kumar Chattcrji’s ‘ Adivasi Literatures of India’
in Indian Literature, Vol. XIV, No. 3, Sahitya Akademi, New
Delhi, September 1971, pp 13-17 ; and Sri Kamal P. Malla’s
Notes, ibid., Vol. XV, No. 3, 1972, pp. 110-114).

In one respect, Newari stands apart from the general run of

THE EARLY NEWARI DRAMA

81

Indian languages, agreeing with the Ahom speech andiwith Assa-
mese, viz., it has a valuable historical literature (the Vaip^dvaUs),
The Buranjis of Assam alone are comparable with this historical
literature in Newari. It is remarkable how the art of writing
historical works in prose originated among two of the chief
Hinduised Indo-Mongoloid peoples of India — the Ahoms and
the Newars.

The Newari drama was a polyglot affair ; theoldestworksgo
back to the first half of the 17th century. The subjects are from
Hindu legend and semi-history. The dramas so far published
give the prose portions in corrupt Newarised Bengali or Maithili
or Kosali, and the songs or verse portions are generally in
Maithili. The stage directions are all in Newari. I have not
seen any which is composed entirely in Newari. They are said
to exist, but none has been published. Possibly the Newari-
speaking king and his court entourage all understood the Indian
Aryan languages, and it did not occur to them to cultivate the
Newari entirely. Possibly it was fashionable to sport the more
advanced Aryan languages of India. The technique of this
drama appears to have been obtained directly from theMaithili
drama, and it goes back in direct line to the Gita-govinda of
Jaya-deva, where narrative portions are in ordinary Sanskrit
verse, and the songs are in rimed verse in Sanskrit, which look
like having been originally in the ApabhramSa or in Old
Bengali. August Conrady edited for the first time one of these
Malla dramas, the Hartfcandra-nrtyam , from Leipzig in 1893 :
subsequently a few more were published by the Vahgiya Sahitya
Parishad of Calcutta. The 1 5th~16th century Assamese drama
with similar religious or legendary subjects, known as the
Ankiya Nat , belongs to the same school, owing its inspiration
to Mithila. The Nepal drama as it developed in the Malla
courts shows the enormous influence of the Aryan languages on
the literary life of the Newars in the 17th century, and probably
earlier still.

The Malla kings were great patrons of music, like the drama,
and in this they resembled the Karnataka and other kings of
Mithila. Some of the Malla kings vaunted even in their coins
of being expert poets or musicians (e.g., Jaya-yoga-narendra-

6

82

KIRATA-JANA-K£TI

Malla of Patan, c. 1688, who described himself in his coins as
Sangitarnava-paraga 'one who has crossed the ocean of music’ ;
and Vira-Bhupalendra-Maila, Girindra-raja-rajendra of Kanti-
pura or Kathinando, c. 1700, who prided in the epithet Kavindra -
cudamani-samrat ‘an emperor, the crest-jewl of chief poets’
(cf. E. H. Walsh, “The Coinage of Nepal”, JRAS, London, 1908,
pp. 669-759).

In religion, the Newars were Mahayana Buddhists, but their
kings (and following them the people in general also) v ere
quite clectic, Brahmanism and Buddhism being equally patro-
nised by them. King Jayasthti-Malla (fourth quarter of the
14th century) brought some Maithil Brahmans from Ind a, and
on their advice divided Newar society into a number of castes
and guilds on the model of Brahmanical Hindu society. Mai-
thil, Bengali and Uttar Pradesh Brahmans were received with
great honour in the Newar courts. They acted as a powerful
force in maintaining a general Hindu orientation of Newar
society-— in spite of its Buddhist faith. King Siddhi-narasimha-
Malla of Patan (c. 1620-1657) built in front of the royal palace
of Patan a gem of a stone temple to Krishna, and the eaves of
the polygonal structure in two stories have a most delicate series
of small high-relief friezes giving the story of the Ramayana and
of the Mahabhdrata , unique of its kind in India and testifying
to the great devotion as well as artistic sense of the founder of
the temple. King Siddhi-narasimha-Malla is said to have lived
the life of an ascetic, disciplining the flesh in all ways, and left
his kingdom, evidently to pass away as a religious recluse. As
a builder, he may be mentioned with his contemporaries in
India — the Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan, the Malla Rajas of
Vishnupur in West Bengal, and the Tamil prince Tirumala
Nayaka of Madura.

The glory of the cultural achievement of the Newars can be
also appraised from the beautiful buildings they erected — palaces
and temples and halls. The distinctive Newar style of temple
architecture should be studied historically with similar types of
buildings — the Chinese pagoda of many stories, and the Travan-
core and Cochin temples in wood and stone. These structures
in their rose-pink brick-work, and their marvellous w'ood carv-

NEWAR ARCHITECTURE AND COINAGE

83

ings (mostly mellowed by age and by paint into a black colour)
and burnished bronze or copper or brass reliefs and furnishings,
form veritable architectural gems. The Darbar Squares at
Patan, Kathmando and Bhat-gaon are priceless museums of
Newar architecture, and for their beauty these architectural
complexes can be mentioned with some of themostfamousgroups
of medieval buildings in the West, e.g., the Grand’-Place Square
of Brussels. A visit to these places will more than anything
convince anyone of the artistic qualities of this gifted Indo-
Mongoloid people. The new Darbar Hall decorated by Newar
artists which has been built by Maharaja Joodha Shamsher Jang
Bahadur Rana some years ago in Kathmando is eloquently
expressive of Newar artistic skill even at the present day.

The Malta kings developed in the 17th century a very
characteristic aniconic style of coins in silver, with Tantric and
other symbolic designs of a geometrical character, and Sanskrit
legends giving the names and tjtles of the rulers and sometimes
of their queens, as well as invocations to particular divinities,
in beautiful Newari writing. Most of these coins are very
beautiful, and they present a remarkable series of artistic
designs in the world’s coinage. (See E. H. Walsh, “The Coinage
of Nepal”, JRAS y London, 1908, where a good survey of the
achievement of the Newar and other peoples of Nepal in this
direction will be found, with full illustrations.)

56. The Gorkhas in Nepal : Gorkha Valour and
Military Virtues

But with their high material culture and their artisticachievc-
ment, the Newars developed neither great fighting qualities nor
political wisdom or foresight. They fell an easy prey to the
Gorkhas, who, after conquering the Nepal Valley from the
Newars in 1768, inaugurated a new era for Nepal. The Gor-
khas, in so far as they represent the ruling classes among the
warlike peoples of Nepal, particularly of Western Nepal, show
a considerable amount of Rajput and Brahman elements. But
there are among the fighting classes of Nepal, who are all loose-
ly classed as Gorkhas in India and abroad, large masses of pure

84

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

Indo-Mongoloids who even now speak their Tibeto-Burman
(Himalayan) dialects. They are even loosely described as, or
are tolerated when they describe themselves as, Kshatriyas,e.g.,
the Magars and Gurungs, who in spite of their Tibeto-Burman
language have rapidly been transformed into orthodox Hindus
and the Limbus, the Rais, the Tamans and others. The orga-
nisation and discipline of the original Gorkha ruling house
headed by the Sah family which gave to Nepal its Gorkha con-
queror Prithwi-narayana Sah and the present reigning house,
and the family of the Rands who furnished the de facto rulers of
Nepal, have made the Hindus and the Hinduised Indo-Mongo-
loids of Nepal one of the finest military races of the world.
The courage and military virtues of the ‘Gorkhas* in their tota-
lity have been demonstrated over and over again ; and these
qualities have been made the fullest use of by the English in
India who employed Gorkha troops in many a theatre of war.
Gorkha valour has won 10 of the 31 Victoria Crosses awarded
to members of the Indian army for conspicuous gallantry
during the Second World War. But the ruling Gorkhas are a
very conservative people who have looked askance at progress
in the shape of emancipating the masses, and barring an
impetus given to the development of literature in the Gorkhali
(Parbatiya or Khas-kura) language (which, officially known as
Nepali , is the first language of the State and is spreading rapid-
ly among all Tibeto-Burman speaking tribes, who are receiving
through this Nepali a common medium of intercourse), and
the opening of some hydroelectrical and other mechanical
schemes, and arms factories, the main contribution of the Gor-
kha to the culture of Nepal has been the khukri , the curved
knife symbolical of Gorkha and Nepali military prowess. This
millitary valour of the pure and mixed Indo-Mongoloids o'f
Nepal is not the least among the achievements of the Indian
people as a whole in modern times.

57. The Indo-Mongoloids in Assam and Bengal :
Linguistic Influences

Kirata or Indo-Mongoloid achievement in Nepal has been
that of the ‘Himalayan’ tribes of the race, particularly the

KIRATA INFLUENCE IN BENGAL AND ASSAM

85

Newars who gave their name to the tract over 2,000 years ago.
In Bengal and Assam, however, it was the four other groups
of the Indo-Mongoloid people which flourished and which
participated in the local history and in the development of the
local culture : and they were the Hollos (in Koch Bihar and
Tripura and in Kachar particularly), the Ahoms, the Khasis
with their Austric Mon-Khmer tongue, and to some extent the
Kukis or Kuki-Chins (the Meitheis of Manipur).

We now take up the story of the Indo-Mongoloids in
Assam. Almost as much as, or even more than Nepal, Assam
is the tract where the Indo-Mongoloid elements are present in
their largest number in India. In Assam they dominated the
scene, politically mostly, and to some extent culturally also
(although in matters of culture, including religion, the compo-
site Hindu culture of the Ganges Valley has always had the
outward victory). Excepting the members of a few of the
higher castes from the west , (and these are as much mixed
Austric-Dravidian-Arya as any), the masses of the people are
Indo-Mongoloid with some Austric and Dravidian substratum.
The Indo-Mongoloid inheritance therefore belongs in a special
manner to the people of Assam as to the people of Nepal,
irrespective of the Aryan language they may speak. In the
development of the Aryan Assamese language (as much as of
Khas-kura or Gorkhali, and to some extent of Bengali, parti-
cularly in its eastern dialects), the influence of the Bodo and
Naga as well as the late Ahom languages is noticed. The Aus-
tric Khasi speech of the Indo-Mongoloid Khasis and Syntengs
(Jaintias) has similar 1 ', influenced the contiguous Aryan. Prof.
Banikanta Kakati in his valuable work Assamese , its Formation
and Development (Gauhati, Assam, 1941) has discussed the
matter, and has given lists of words and toponyms of Khasi
(and other Austric) origin as well as Bodo and Ahom origin
in Assamese (pp. 32-56). A good number of Assamese words
of Indo-Mongoloid provenance are also to be found in Bengal.
At least one syntactical device in Bengali and Assamese was
due to Bodo influence, as it has been suggested by the late
J. D. Anderson (in the pronounced preference for the conjunc-
tive verb-form : see S. K. Chatterji, Origin and Development of

86

kirAta-jana-krti

the Bengali Language , Calcutta, 1926, p. 1011). A close study
of the evolution of Bengali and Assamese syntax, in compari-
son with the Bodo (and Khasi) speeches particularly, is sure to
reveal further and surer points of contact between Indo-
Aryan and Indo-Mongoloid. The peculiar syntactical devices
of Sylhet Bengali, for instance, which mark the dialect off from
Standard Bengali, have also to be taken note of.

In Assam, the following matters in phonetics are suggestive
of Tibeto-Burman (Bodo) influence : (i) Loss of distinction
between the cerebrals’ (retroflex sounds, cacuminals) and pure
dentals, both of these being substituted by alveolars (teeth-
ridge sounds) ; (ii) the dentalisation of the palatal affricates —
of c, ch to s, and of j, jh to z (in recent Assamese, ch>s has
become s) ; and (iii) the change of s to h , and then to jc, the
guttural unvoiced spirant, like the Persian sound as in khudd
(~xuda), khush (=xus), etc. These novel pronunciations were
introduced into the Aryan Assamese when it was being adopted
by Indo-Mongoloid peoples who were abandoning their own
dialects hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Prof. Kakati
has noted two formative affixes in Assamese as being of Bodo
origin (op. cit., pp. 50-51). The use of the post-positional pro-
nominal affixes to indicate ownership or connexion in the case
of some words of relationship which is so characteristic of
Assamese (cf. Assamese bopai—' my father’, baper — 't hy father’,
bdpera— 1 your father’, bapek = 'h is father’; so ai, mar, mar a,
mak—'my mother, thy mother, your mother, his mother’ res-
pectively) is believed to be due to Tibeto-Burman (Bodo)
influence, although other explanations have been proposed
(cf. Origin and Development of the Bengali Language , § 724 ;
Assamese , its Formation and Development , pp* 270ff). It is
exceedingly likely that further points of agreement between the
Indo-Aryan speeches of the East (Bengali, Bishnapuriyaz, Assa-
mese, Parbatiya, Maithili, Chakna, etc.) and the dialects spoken
by the Indo-Mongoloids will come out with closer enquiry.

58. Early Contact between Assam and North India

The Indo-Mongoloid background of Assam ethnology and
history and culture is pretty clear from and earliest times. Tradi-

ASSAMESE RELATIONSHIP TERMS : KING BHAGADATTA 87

tionally the Mahabhdrata happenings are contemporaneous with
the compilation of the Vedas by Krishna Dvaipayana Veda-
vyasa. About the middle of the 10th century B.C., as we have
seen (§ 14), has been proposed as the date of the Kurukshetra
battle, round which the great epic centres. Bhagadatta, theking
of Pragjyotisha or Western Assam, took part in this battle, as
the Mahabhdrata tells us. He is described as a Mleccha king —
a king of the barbarians, or a barbarian ruler himself : he
was followed by troops of Kirata and Clna race. He is the
earliest ruler of Assam of whom we have any reference in
tradition. According to later legends, he was the son of
Naraka Asura, who was born of Vishnu and Prthivf, the Earth
Goddess. From Bhagadatta of the Mahabhdrata , c . 950 B.C.,
except for the mention of Kamarupa as a vassal frontier State
under the Gupta emperors (c. 400 A.D.), we have no definite
information about Assam and its rulers right up to the middle
of the 7th century A. D. (c. $40 A. D.), when we obtain some
facts from the Dubi and Nidhanpur (Sylhet) copper-plates of
king (Kumara) Bhaskara-varman, a contemporary of Harsha-
vardhana of Thaneswar and Kanauj, and of Hiuen Ts’ang the
Chinese pilgrim. In these Sanskrit inscriptions we find a pedi-
gree given of the family of Bhaskara-varman for some twelve
generations. This pedigree may be quite authentic. It is men-
tioned that Bhagadatta’s familly ruled over PragjyOtisha for
3,000 years. Then Pushya-varman came to the throne, and after
him names of ten kings and those of their queens are given, the
11th from Pushya-varman being Susthita-varman, alias Sri Mf-
ganka, whose queen was 6yama-devl. This king had two sons, who,
both of them, became kings — Suprati$thita-varman or Susthira-
vannanand Bhaskara-varman alias Bhaskara-dyuti or Kumara.
With 25 years for a generation, this line of 12 generations of kings
would come up to 300 years: so roughly we have from 350 A.O .
to 650 A.D. the line of Pushya-varman which regarded itself
as being of the Bhagadatta family (the Mahabharat a tradition had
evidently come to the Hinduised Indo-Mongoloids of Assam at
least by the middle of the 4th century A.D., together with some
accepted date for the Mahabhdrata events as going back to
something like 2650 B.C.) ruling over Assam. All the kings

88

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

and queens of these inscriptions have Sanskrit names. It w ould
appear that during 300 B.C. to 400 A.D., and probably round
about the Christian era, Assam was getting to be known to the
Hindu world of North India more intimately than before.
Pragjyotisa and Kamarupa occur as names for Assam in the
Mahabhdrata , and already in the Allahabad Pillar Inscription
of Samudra-gupta the name of Kamarupa occurs as a frontier
State.

59. Pre-Aryan (Indo-Mongoloid) Toponomy in Assam :

‘Lauhitya, Brahma-putra\ etc.

The Brahmaputra river also came to be better known in the
Hindu world outside Assam as Lauhitya , which would appear
to be an Aryanisation, in Sanskrit, of the Indo-Mongoloid
(Old Bodo?) name Luhit which is still the name of the eastern-
most branch of the river, now flanked by Mishmi (North
Assamese), Singpho or Kachin (Burmese-Kuki-Lolo) and
Khmati (Siamese-Chinese) speakers. But originally, the area of
the Luhit river appears to have been inhabited by Bodo speak-
ers. The Dihang is the name of the main channel of the Brahma-
putra — the entire river is really Tsang-po-Dihang-Brahmaputra ;
the Sesiri and the Dibang are other branches from the north,
while the Luhit is the main feeder from the east, which, beyond the
eastern frontiers of India, is known as the Zayul. Conceivably,
the name Luhit at one time extended further to the west, for
the entire river now known as the Brahmaputra. In any case, in
Di-bang and Di-hang we have the common Bodo element for
water or river, Ti or Di. Other explanations for the name Luhit
have been proposed, but these do not appear to be convincing :
e.g., an Austric +Lao-tu, or Bodo Ti-Iao~ K clean water’ (cf. Bani-
kanta Kakati, op. cit p. 53 ; E. Gait, History of Assam , 2nd
edition, Calcutta, 1926, p. 6).

The commoner name of the river, by which it is now gene-
rally known, viz., Brahma-putra, is certainly a Sanskritisation of
some other Indo-Mongoloid name. A Bodo expression Bhul-
larn-buthur has been suggested as the Indo-Mongoloid (Tibeto-
Burman) basis of the word Brahmaputra , by Mr. Bishnu Rabha

THE NAMES ‘LAUHITYA, BRAHMAPUTRA, KAMAKHYA*

89

( Asarmya-Kr$ti or ‘the Culture of Assam’, Gauhati, 1947,
p. 10), but this expression in Bo do has not been attested by me.
Mr. Bishnu Rabha explains Bhullam-buthur as kala-kala-nddini ,
i.e., ‘making a gurgling noise*. * Burum-buthur might very well
be an intermediate form, before it was fully Sanskritised to
Brahma-putra ; and even at the present day the vernacular
pronunciations of the Sanskrit word will approximate this
Burum-buttur. Brahma-putra is comparatively a late name,
later than Lauhitya. Similarly the name for the Ganges — Gariga
— would appear to be an Austria word meaning just ‘river’.

The name of the shrine of the Great Mother at Kamakhya
near Gauhati, which attained India-wide celebrity much later,
probably after the erection of the present temple by king Nara-
narayana of Koch Bihar in the second half of the 16th century,
is in all likelihood of pre-Aryan origin. This name has been
explained by B. K. Kakati as being Austric in origin ; so also
the place-names Kama-rupa , Kamata and Kamilla (Comillah)
(op. cit. y pp. 53-54). But it seems more probable that ihese
names are Bodo, to start with, and are from a tribal name be-
fore they became associated with localities. There is an ele-
ment Kam or Kam which occurs in all these names, which also
occurred in the name of the most western tribe of the Bodos,
the Koches (modern Korpc , Koc, from an earlier *Kaworpca or
*Kamdca, Sanskritised as Kamboja in the 10th century in a
North Bengal inscription : cf. Origin and Development of the
Bengali Language , I, p. 69). Nagendra Nath Vasu in his Social
History of Kdmarupa (Calcutta, 1922, p. 176) has given a num-
ber of likely non-Aryan (Tibeto-Burman?) names from Assam
and North Bengal inscriptions. These words refer to place-
names and natural topography. Thus we may note the follow-
ing : haruppa 9 nokka, jdsa y naukuba , chamikdkachi , dijjina 9 hen -
sibd, kdppd , diddesa , nduki , candenduki , diyambara y hapyoma ,
kuntavita , kamakuti , lakkhaba , digjumma (river), digdola , sob -
badi , cammalya, nekkd y badijjuraibhudi , abhanca , hakuka , thdi -
sddobbi , cakkojana , dijamakkd , ndkka-ndda y etc., etc. The
meanings of the above cannot be known — some can only be
guessed. Some of the words appear to be Austric (e.g., cam -
malya— cammalla, which I have sought to explain as an Austric

90

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

word, as an old form of our New Indo-Aryan word for ‘rice* —
carpwal , carnal , cawal , cdul y cal : cf. Zeitschrift fur Indologie
und Iranistik, Vol. 9, Part I, 1932, pp. 31-37). Others must be
Indo-Mongoloid (Old Bodo). A few of these words, again, are
Indo-Aryan (Prakrit, and Old Bengali-Assamcse) : e.g., khagga
= khadga> Bengali-Assamese khdg=* ‘sharp reed*; makkhiyana =
makfikanam; jdu-galla -jatu+ Vgal^ Bengali jau andga/J,both
meaning ‘lac’ (and molten lac); go-santara = ‘cow-swim, Ox-ford’;
pdrani= ( crossing’. Evidently by 1000 A.D., Bodo and Aryan
were spoken side by side in the Assam and North Bengal plains.
(See the study of Old Bengal Place Names from Inscriptions in
Suniti Kumar Chatterji, Origin and Development of the Bengali
Language y 2nd Edition, London, George Allen & Unwin, 1971,
Vol. I, Appendix C, pp. 179-188 ; Vol. Ill, Additions and Cor-
rections, pp. 35-40).

60. Bhaskara-varman of KAma-rupa : thh Glory of
his Reign

Long before the time of Bhaskara-varman (i.e., before the
first half of the 7th century A.D.) and probably during the early
days of the Gupta empire, Pragjyotisha or Kamarupa had en-
tered into the comity of Hindu states with her dynasty of
Hinduised Indo-Mongoloid (probably Bodo) ruler. Bhaskara-
varman was unquestionably one of the most remarkable men
and rulers of his time — a worthy contemporary of Harsha-
vardhana and of Hiuen Ts’ang. We obtain a good deal of in-
formation about him from his own inscriptions, the Dubi and
Nidhanpur (Sylhet) copper-plate grants mentioned above, from
the Sanskrit Har$a-carita (a romantic biography of king Harsha-
vardhana by his court-poet Bana-bhaUa), and from notices of
him left by the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim and scholar Hiuen
Ts’ang, and from other Chinese sources. We need not go into
details of his career and history. He had the foresight to link
Assam with the greatest contemporary ruler of North India,
viz., Harsha-vardhana Siladitya of Thaneswar and Kanauj,
whose friendship he obtained, being more an ally and a com-
rade than a vassal ; and his alliance with Harsha-vardhana was

KUMARA BHASKARA-VARMAN OF KAMA-RUPA

91

in all likelihood instrumental in obtaining for him an extension
of his kingdom — he ruled not only over Western and Northern
Assam (the Brahmaputra-valley), but also probably over the
Surma valley (Sylhet, where an inscription of his has been
found), and he was able to annex Karna-suvarna in West
Bengal, in his lime, before the days of Nara-narayana the
Koch king of North Bengal and Assam, Assam’s dominion ex-
tended over the greater part of Bengal. A Hinduised Indo-
Mongoloid empire was thus achieved during the middle of the
7th century A.D. Bhaskara-varman was not a mere provincial
ruler of a distant frontier kingdom, in North-eastern India.
In 644 A.D. he visited Harsha-vardhana in his own realm in
North India, and fully participated in the cultural and intellec-
tual life of Hindu India of his time. He was a Brahmanical
Hindu himself, but he had his friend and patron Harsha-
vardhana’s broadness of outlook. He was host to Hiuen
Ts’ang whom he invited to his court in Kamarupa, when the
latter was staying and studying in Nalanda. Hiuen Ts’ang ac-
cepted this invitation, and came to Kamarupa, and the descrip-
tion he has left of the place is the oldest that we have of Assam
from any writer, Indian or foreign. Hiuen Ts’ang by mistake
described Bhaskara-varman as a Brahman, but he was just a
neo-Kshatriya, a member of a Hinduised mleccha or non-Hindu
Indo-Mongoloid family which had been accepted within the
fold of Hindu orthodoxy. The Mongoloid character of the
people of the country is clearly noted by the Chinese writer :
‘the men arc of small stature and their complexion, a dark yel-
low : their language differs a little from that of Mid-India’
(this differing ‘a little’ in Hiuen Ts’ang’s parlance meant, how-
ever, really differing entirely : see Origin and Development of
the Bengali Language , I, pp. 77-79). Hiuen Ts’ang knew that
the eastern frontiers of Bhaskara-varman’s kingdom were adja-
cent to the south-eastern frontiers of China. Communication
between China and India (Assam) through the wild mountain-
ous regions between the two countries was exceedingly difficult,
being two months’ march through pestilential jungles and high
mountains, as Hiuen Ts’ang has noted. But it nevertheless did
exist, and did exist for centuries before the days of both Hiuen

92 KIRA TA-JANA-KRTI

Ts’ang and Bhaskara-varman, as we know from the Chinese
soldier- explorer in Central Asia in the 2nd century B.C , Chang
K’ien (see ante , § 27), and from the Greekgeographers and sailors
from the lstcentury A.D.(c.g. y thePerip/us of the Erythrcean Sea ,
and the geography of Ptolemy).

After 648 A.D , the Chinese, making the allied State of
Nepal their base, invaded India to avenge the insult done to
the Chinese representatives who came to Harsha-vardhana’s
court after Harsha had died, and they defeated and captured
the faithless minister of Harsha who had usurped his master’s
throne and treated with scant courtesy the envoys from China.
In this conflict, Bhaskara-varman aided the Chinese with sup-
plies of cattle, horses and accoutrements. Bhaskara was
quite a wide-awake ruler, with an intelligent, international out-
look in both politics and culture, which was rather rare in
those days in all lands, and particularly in India. We may as-
sume that as the ruler of a frontier State in India, adjoining
areas within the purview of China, he encouraged Sino-Indian
co-operation in commerce and culture. T’ang China and Sasa-
nian Persia were the only great states in Asia with which India
had direct contact in those days, and the direct contact with
China was effected by the land route only through Assam.
There was direct contact by the sea-route from Tararalipti in
Bengal and from the harbours in the Kalinga country and the
Tamil land, and Hiuen Ts’ang himself had come from China
by a round-about route through Central Asia. Evidently the
Mongoloid kinship of the people of Assam with that of China
and of the intermediate lands served as a link.

61 . Bhaskara-varman and China : the ‘Tao-teh-king’

of Lao-tzu

From Chinese sources, we find interesting side-lights about
Sino-Indian culture-contacts through Assam and about the
enlightened curiosity of the Indo-Mongoloid ruler of Assam
Bhaskara-varman in matters relating to Chinese thought. In
619 A.D. a Chinese prince, a son of the T’ang emperor Kao-
tsu, had defeated some rebels against ‘the Son of Heaven’, the

bhaskara-varman and china : the ‘tao-teh-king* 93

Chinese emperor. A song was composed in celebration of the
event, and in praise of the emperor of China. This song tra-
velled to India (it was probably the melody only which came
to India — the Chinese words could possibly not have come,
but a translation of the song in some Tibeto-Burman language,
it may be Old Bodo, might have also been current). Bhaskara-
varman had taken note of this Chinese song, which was popu-
lar with his people ; and when he saw Hiuen Ts’ang in 638 A.D.
in his capital, he, on the testimony of Hiuen Ts’ang himself, told
him as follows : ‘At present in various states of India a song
has been heard from some time called “the Music of the Con-
quests of Ts’in-wang (i.e., of the Prince or King of Ts’in)” of
Mahacina (i.e., China Proper). All his subjects having their
moral and material wants cared for by this ruler sing the song
of Ts’in-wang’s conquests, and this fine song has long been
known (in Kamarupa)’. This narrative related by Hiuen Ts’ang
shows how, in spite of the difficulties of communication bet-
ween India and China in these days, a piece of music composed
in China could find its way to India ; and it testifies to some
sort of close cultural connexion between the two countries.

Bhaskara-varman was also curious to have precise informa-
mation about the philosophy of Lao-tzu. Before the advent
of Buddhism in China, the highest and the most profound ex-
pression of the mind and soul of China in philosophy and
mysticism was through the doctrines of Lao-tzu, who lived, an
elder contemporary of the other great philosopher of China,
Confucius (K’ung-fu-tzu), about 600 B.C. Buddhism after its
introduction into China was in close and generally sympathetic
connexion with Taoism, the philosophy of Lao-tzu, and it
borrowed some of its technical terms from Taoism. Taoist and
Buddhist teachers read each others’ scriptures, and Taoism was
reorganised as a church and as a popular religion on the lines
of Buddhism. Taoism in its general outlook is like the Vedanta
of the early Upani$ads , and the basic work of Taoism, the Tao-
teh-king , attributed to the sage Lao-tzu himself, is comparable
to the earlier Upani$ads of India. The philosophy centres
round the conception of the Ultimate Reality behind Life and
the Universe as the ‘Way’ (the word Tao meaning ‘way’ in

94

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

Chinese), which was like the Indian conception of the Unmani-
fest ( nirguna ) and the Manifest ( sa-guna ) Brahman : ‘the Way*,
as a philosophical concept, lays stress on the inevitability of
things in life as a manifestation of the inner principle of exist-
ence. The Chinese pilgrim-scholars who came to India and
studied Indian philosophy must have been impressed by the
agreements between Taoism and the Vedanta, and they were,
many of them, well-versed in the literature of Taoism. Already
about 520 A.D., over a hundred years before Hiuen Ts’ang
and Bhaskara-varman, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Song-yun
had discoursed on Lao-tzu and his great expositor Chuang-
tzu (4th century B.C.) before the King of Udyana in the North
west frontier of India. Bhaskara-varman, too, it may be reason-
ably presumed, was also acquainted with Lao-tzu philosopy
through Hiuen Ts’ang in 638 A.D., — if not earlier through
other sources. The curiosity of Bhaskara-varman was aroused,
and when subsequently he met the Chinese envoys Wang
Hiuen-tzu and Li Yi-piao who were sent to the court of Harsha-
vardhana, he asked the latter to send him from China a Sanskrit
translation of the Tao-teh-king and a portrait figure (picture or
image) of Lao-tzu. Li Yi-piao had also spoken to Bhaskara
about the doctrines of Lao-tzu and about the fact of his book
not having come to India. Bhaskara-varman gave some valuable
presents to the Chinese envoys, and sent to the Chinese em-
peror a map of his kingdom (including, evidently, the wide
tract of country in Eastern India, Assam and Bengal both
comprised, to impress the Chinese emperor of his power and
importance). The mention of this map of the territories of
Bhaskara is noteworthy : it shows a certain high standard of
intellectual attainment in an Indo-Mongoloid Assam of the
7th century A.D. Li Yi-piao returned to China and reported
to the emperor about the request of Bhaskara-varman in con-
nexion with the Tao-teh-king ; and the emperor at once
appointed a board of Taoist and Buddhist scholars to prepare
a Sanskrit translation of the Chinese work, Hiuen Ts'ang as
the most erudite Sanskritist of China taking a leading part in
the discussions which preceded the work of the translation.
Chinese documents giving an account of a learned and friendly

A SANSKRIT TRANSLATION OF THE ‘TAO-TEH-KING’ ?

95

controversy which started around the proper Sanskrit rendering
of the Chinese word Tao have been found, and translated into
French by Paul Pelliot (in the T'outig Pao , Leiden, Vol. XIII,
1912, pp. 38!ff). Hiuen Ts’ang suggested that the proper word
for Tao was mdrga in Sanskrit, but the Taoist scholars, who
were conversant with Buddhism, thought that bddhi was the
better word. (It seems that the proper word in Sanskrit to
render the word Tao of Chinese — pronounced Dhau in Old
Chinese — in both its literal and philosophical sense, is Rta —
in the Vedas and the Upanishads indicating the Cosmic order,
the Law or Principle centering in Being and this word appears
to have indicated also ‘the Way’, being derived from the V r
‘to go ’ — Rta being ‘that through which things go or move*).
It is not known whether the translation (which was completed
apparently) was ever received by Bhaskara-varman. In any
case, it is a stimulating story of intellectual fellowship between
China and India in the early medieval times, and it centres
round an enlightened Indo-Mongoloid prince of Eastern India.

62. Bhaskara-varman s Presents to Harsha-vardhana

The material and intellectual culture of Assam in the days
of Bhaskara-Varman is brought out in a remarkable manner
through the description by Bana-bhatta of the presents sent by
the king of Pragjyotisha to his royal friend and sovereign lord
Harsha-vardhana Siladitya when the latter ascended the throne
after the death of his elder brother Rajya-vardhana. These
presents were brought to Harsha by Bhaskara’s confidential
messenger Hamsa-vega. These included, in the first instance, a
white silk umbrella, an ancient heir-loom in the family of
Bhaskara, and there is an elaborate description of this wonder-
ful creation of ancient Pragjyotisha craftsmanship in the Har$a -
carita. The other presents were displayed and inspected by
Harsha, To quote from the Har$a-carita (in F. W. Thomas’s
translation, London, 1897, pp. 213 ff) : ‘Among them were fam-
ous ornaments inherited from Bhagadatta and other renowned
kings, ornaments which crimsoned the heavenly spaces with the
light of the finest gems : the prime of sheeny crest jewels :

96

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

pearl necklaces which seemed the source of the Milk Ocean’s
whiteness : silken towels pure as the autumn moon’s light,
rolled up in baskets of variously coloured reeds : quantities
of pearl, shell, sapphire, and other drinking vessels, embossed
by skilful artists : loads of Kardaranga leather bucklers with
charming borders, bright gold-leaf work winding about them,
and cases to preserve their colour : soft loin-cloths smooth as
birch-bark : pillows of Samuruka (a kind of deer) leather, and
other is of smooth figured textures : cane stools with the bark
yellow as the each of the millet : volumes of fine writing with
leaves made from aloe bark and of the hue of the ripe pink
cucumber : luscious milky betel-nut fruit, hanging from its
sprays and green as young harita doves : thick bamboo tubes
containing mango sap and black aloes oil, and fenced round
with sheaths of kdpotikd leaves, tawny as an angry ape’s
cheeks ; bundles contained in sacks of woven silk and consis-
ting of black aloe dark as pounded collyrium, Go(irfa sandal
stealing the fiercest inflammation away, camphor cool,
pure, and white as bits of ice : scent bags of musk oxen, kak-
kola sprays, clove flower bunches, and nutmeg clusters, all
bristling with masses of ripe fruit : cups of ullaka (a fruit-
juice ? a kind of decoction ?), diffusing fragrance of thesweetest
wine : heaps of black and white chowries : carved boxes of
panels for painting, with brushes and gourds attached : curious
pairs of kinnars, orang-outangs (vana-mdnufa), jtvanjivoka birds,
and mermen ( jala-manufa ) with necks bound in golden fetters :
musk deer scenting the space all round them with their per-
fume : female camara deer (=yak cows), used to running about
the house : parrots, parikds, and other birds enclosed in gold-
painted bamboo cages and chattering copious wit : partridges
in cages of coral : and rings of hippoptamus ( jala-hastin ) ivory,
encrusted with rows of huge pearls from the brows of ele-
phants’ .

The above list of presents enumerates some of the most
remarkable artistic and economic products of Assam. Fine
silk and various kinds of silk weave, and books on aloe bark,
as well as cane and bamboo work and ivory ornaments, were
the artistic crafts’ in which Assam excelled then as now.

THE DYNASTIES OF £.\LA-STAMBHA AND PRALAMBHA

97

63. The ‘Mleccha’ Dynasty of Sala-stambha in Assam

It appears that after Bhaskara-varman’s demise his family
or line was supplanted by another dynasty, equally Indo-
Mongoloid in origin, which ruled Assam roughly from 650 to
800 A. D. This is the dynasty of Sala-stambha, who is describ-
ed in an inscription of king Ratna-pala of a subsequent
dynasty (the Bargaon copper-plate grant of this king, dating
from the first half of the 11th century) as a Mleccha or non-
Hindu overlord ( mlecchddhinatha ). From the inscriptional
evidence from various sides, it would appear that the line
started by 3ala-stambha had some 20 kings, names of some of
of whom have been given in the various inscriptions, namely,
Vigraha-stambha, Kumara, Vajra-deva and Harisha or Harsha-
varman. It appears that the daughter of Harsha-varman or
Harisha of this dynasty, Rajyamati, was married to King Jaya-
deva Para-cakra-kama of Nepal, as mentioned in the PaSupati
inscription in Nepal dated c. 748 A.D. (see § 47 ante). In
the Nepal inscription, Harsha-varman, or Harisha of the
Assam records has been described as Sri Harsha-deva, Gaud -
Odrddi-Kalihga-Kosala-pati , and Rajyamati has been called
Bhagadatta-rdjakula-jd : this would suggest that by the middle
of the 8th century, the line of Sala-stambha claimed to be or
was regarded as being descended from the renowned hero from
Assam mentioned in the Mahdbhdrata . But the distinct men-
tion of Sala-stambha as being a lord of the Mlecchas, as in the
Bargaon coppcr-plate of the 11th century, would appear to
make it clear that he was a Bodo chief of the Mech tribe (Sans-
kritised as Mleccha ), who followed Bhaskara-varman in
assuming the rulership of Assam.

64. The Dynasty of Pralambha

The next dynasty to follow in Assam was that of Pralam-
bha. It is a moot question whether Pralambha started a new
line entirely, or that he was a scion of the same family as that
of Sala-stambha, Professor Padmanath Bhattacharya supporting
the latter view (cf. Hem Chandra Ray, Dynastic History of
7

98

KIRATA-JANA-K£TI

North India , Vol. I, pp. 241ff : Calcutta 1931). The Pralmbha
family, also undoubtedly Indo-Mongoloid (Bodo), ruled Assam
from c. 800 A.D. to 1000 A.D., and we have six names of this
line — Pralambha (queen Jivada), Harjara (c. 830 A.D. ; queen
Tara), Vanamala (c. 875 A.D.), Jayamala, Vira-bahu(c.900A.D. ;
queen Amba), Baia-varman ( c . 925 A.D.), and finally Tyaga-
simha ( c . 1000 A. D.), who died without an heir, and after
whom came the dynasty of the Palas of Assam who ruled the
province for a century (1000-1100 A.D.). The kings of the
Pralambha dynasty were Saivas, and they were instrumental
in settling Brahmans in their realm. We have a few Sanskrit
inscriptions of this dynasty. Harjara appears to be the most
powerful king of this line, the real founder of it. His name
is non-Aryan, and the ‘ancestral camp’ of the Pralambha line,
their original seat, is mentioned as Haruppesvara in which word
the element Hdruppa is non-Aryan (Professor B. K. Kakati has
sought to explain Hdruppa as an Austric word, see p. 54 of his
work on Assamese : but this is extremely doubtful). These
kings also claimed descent from Naraka (and Bhagadatta) —
Harjara for instance is described as a scion of the line of kings
descended from the Earth (alluding to the legend of Vishnu >
and the Earth-Goddess being the parents of Naraka: k$iti-
tanaya-nrpati-vawia ).

65. The Kama-rupa Palas : Brahma-pala, his queen
Kula-Devi : Ratna-pala

The Pralambha dynasty was followed by the Pala dynasty
of Assam. The first king of this line, Brahma-pala, was equally
an Indo-Mongoloid, and he is described in an inscription of
his son Ratna-pala as being a relative of Tyaga-simha of the
preceding line, and a member of the Bhauma or ‘Earth-born’,
i.e., pre-Aryan clan, of the dynasty of Naraka. It was by
popular election that Brahma-pala was made king : the people
of the country thought it well that a Bhauma, a Son of the
Earth, should be appointed as their lord, as the Bafgaon ins-
cription says. Herein we probably see self-determination by

QUEEN KULA-DEVI : KING RATNA-PALA ! ‘DURJAYA' TOWN 99

the local Indo-Mongoloid people of Assam. The names of
the rulers of this dynasty all end in -pala : herein they would
appear to be influenced by the powerful Pala dynasty of the
neighbouring Bengal and Bihar, although they were themselves
of Assam Indo-Mongoloid origin. The marriage of Brahma-
pala is described in these democratic terms, suggestive of the
simple manners of Indo-Mongoloid society. ‘His desire being
stimulated by the taste of the joys due to his prosperity, he
married a young woman who by reason of her devotion to her
people #bore the name of Kula-devi, which is, as it were, the
standing name for Lakshmi (or ‘good fortune') attainable by
(all) rulers sprung from any (noble) family in the world'.
Evidently here was no hankering for alliance with exalted
‘Kshatriya’ families of the West : king Brahma-pala was con-
tent, after his elevation to the throne, to marry a young woman
of the people. Ratna-pala, the second king of this line, appears
to have been a powerful and ambitious prince, who knew he
might come in hostile contact with the kings of Gurjara (i.c.,
of Kanauj), of Gauda (i.e., Bengal), and of certain tracts in
South India (Daksinatya or Deccan and Kerala or Malabar),
and with the ‘Bahikas’ (the Bakes of North Bengal ?) and the
‘Tai'kas’ (these could not be Tdjikas or Iraniansand Turks from
Afghanistan : were they a Dai, Tai or Thai people from North
Burma?). His capital city, known as Durjaya, probably ancient
Gauhati, was a city of a thousand plastered turrets, adorned
by learned men, religious preceptors and poets, encompassed
by a rampart and a strong stockade, and rendered beautiful by
the Lauhitya — as it has been described in his Bargaon grant.
Scholarly Brahmans like Prahasa from Balagrama in Varendri
or North Bengal (c. 1050 A.D.) made their home in Assam,
and Sanskrit culture evidently received a fresh impetus from
the Palas of Kama-rupa.

66. Timgya-deva, c. 1100 a.d. ; Vaidya-deva and
Budha-deva ; the Lunar Dynasty Kings

The Kama-rupa Palas were staunch Saivas. Towards the
end of the 11th century the power of Kama-rupa Palas waned.

100

kirAta-jana-krti

and there is record of an invasion of Assam by Jata-varman,
the Varman king of East Bengal. It seems likely that by 1100,
the powerful Palas of Bengal interfered in the affairs of Assam,
and one chief, whose relationship with the Kama-rupa Palas is
not known, but who bears a non-Aryan sounding name (Tim-
gya-deva) seems to have become king af Assam ( c . 1 100) with
the approval of the Pala king of Gauda and Magadha, Rama-
pala — probably as a vassal of the Palas. But Timgya-deva
rebelled ; and the Pala king of Bengal, Kumara-pala ( c . 1126-
1130 A.D.), appointed his minister Vaidya-deva to the Mngship
of Kama-rupa, and Vaidya-deva and his brother Budha-deva
defeated and killed Tirrigya, and they ruled over Kamarupa as
vassals of the Bengal Palas probably upto the middle of the
12th century.

Vijaya sena of West Bengal (c. 1097-1159 A.D.) and his
grandson Lakshmana-sena, the last Hindu king of West
Bengal, attacked Kamarupa, the former probably defeating
Vaidya-deva or his brother and the latter some ruler of a new
dynasty called the CancJra-varjisa or ‘Lunar’ Dynasty which
established itself in Assam during the second half of the 12th
century. Names of four princes of this ‘Lunar’ Dynasty have
been found in an inscription of Vallabha-deva, son of Udaya-
karna, who may have ruled about 1200 A.D. One of the rulers
has a vernacular-sounding name, Rayari ( = Rajaryya ?), and
also a queen of this family, Ahiava-devi (^Avidhavdl cf.
Middle Bengali diha , dyya) wife of Udaya-karna. They appear
to have been £aivas. It is not known what they were by race
— pure Indo-Mongoloid or not. But from their vernacular
names, we may assume that they spoke Old Assamese.

67. The Turki Invasion of Kama-rupa

In 1205 A. D. the Turks under Muhammad ibn Bakhtyar
Khilji, after conquering North Bengal (Gautfa) and West Ben-
gal (Nodiyah) in 1198 A.D., invaded Kama-rupa, with a view
to conquer Tibet. Their objective was evidently to control
the rich trade between Tibet and beyond and North Bengal and

THE TURK REVERSES IN ASSAM : THE ‘AHOMS’

101

Assam. According to Minhaju-s-Siraj, the author of the
Tabaqat-i-Na$iri, the Persian history which narrates the con-
quest of Bengal by the Turks (compiled c. J261 A.D.), Kama-
rupa was inhabited by the Kwnc , the Myj and the Th'rw (i.e.,
the Koryic or Koch, Mec or Mech and the Tharu) peoples, whose
Mongoloid race and speech made a distinct impression upon
the Turks, themselves also of the same race ; for we read in
the Persian history that these races had ‘Turki countenances’
(i.e., slanting eyes, snub noses, high cheek-bones and yellow
complexion of the Mongols), and they spoke a ‘different idiom’
from the language of India proper. Whoever was the king of
Kama-rupa, he and his people gave a stiff fight and showed great
skill in conducting the campaign ; and the Turks were beaten
back, being almost entirely annihilated. In the 13th century
there was another serious attempt to conquer Kama-rupa by the
Turks, and although it was successful at first, the capital of Kama-
rupa being occupied by the Turks from Bengal, the Kama-rupa
king (to his east a new power and a formidable rival was ari-
sing, but nevertheless he was still an efficient soldier) attacked
the invader Malik Ikhtiyaruddln Yuzbak Tughril Khan and
destroyed him and his army (1258 A.D.). Subsequent atte-
mpts on the part of the Mohammadan rulers of BeDgal and
North India to conquer Assam failed ultimately, in spite of
initial successes, thanks primarily to the power and organisa-
tion of the Ahom rulers of the province, who came into the
field early in the 13th century, and brought a fresh and a vigo-
rous Mongoloid element in shaping the history of Assam and
North-eastern India for the next five centuries.

68. The Cuming oi the Ahoms : the Names ‘Asam, Asam,
Asama, Assam ; Aham, Ahom ; Shan, Syam, Syama, Siam 1

In the history of Assam and of the Assam-Bcngal States of
Koch Bihar, Kachar, Jaintia, Sylhet and Tippera, it would
appear that it was mainly the Hinduised Indo-Mongoloids who
took part in it, Brahmans and other purer Hindu elements
hailing mostly from the West being numerically too small to

102

KIRATA-JANA-KRTJ

take elTective part in the local affairs ; and work of the Brah-
mans and other Hindus from the West settled in these parts
was to act as a powerful leaven, in gradually bringing about
a uniformity of religion and culture through Puranic Hinduism.
The history of Assam from 1250 to 1700 A. D. was to some
extent the history of a struggle between the original Indo-
Mongoloid inhabitants of the country (mostly Tibeto-Burman
Bodo)and the newly arrived (Sino-Siamese) Ahoms who belonged
to a distant branch of the same Sino-Tibetan stock. The Ahoms
belonged to thcTai or Shan sectionof the Siamese-Chinese branch
of the Sino-Tibetans. They arrived in Assam by way of North
Burma, through the course of the NoaDihingriver, atthe begin-
ning of the 13th century. Probably they were preceded by allied
tribes— as they were followed by others, equally their kinsmen, c,g.,
the Khamtis. They had not (unlike the Khamtis) accepted
Buddhism, and followed their old animistic religion, although
they had learned a modification of the Indian alphabet as
used in Burma and Indo-China to write their own language.

The Ahoms gave their name to the North-eastern tract of
India which was known in ancient and medieval times as Kama -
rupa and Prdgjyotisha , and made it Assam in English, written in
Modern Assamese as Asam and pronounced now asoxom. The
original form of the word in Old Burmese was Rham or If yam ,
which became in Middle Burmese (after 1050 A.D.) Yham and
Hyam , and then in different languages Aham , Ahom , Qvam, (fam %
Syam, Siam , Sydma, Asama , Asam , Shan , etc. (See Sunin
Kumar Chatterji, ‘The name “Assam-Ahom” \ in the Journal of
the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta, Vol, XXII, 1956, No. 2,
pp. 147-153.)

69. Ahom vs. Bo ho in Assam

When the Ahoms came into Assam, they met with at least
two powerful Hinduised Bodo States, that of the Chutiyas in
the extreme cast, round about Sadiya, and that of the Dima-sa
or Kacharis in the Dhansiri valley. The exact situation in

THE CHUTIYAS— THE EARLY AHOMS

103

Western Kama-rupa is now not known. Probably the Lunar
Dynasty of Valiabha-deva, an Old Assamese-speaking dynasty
which may or may not have been of Botfo origin, was in power
there. But it is exceedingly likely that in Kama-rupa and the
adjacent Kamata Bihar and Koch Bihar, the Western Bodos —
the great Komach (Koch) tribe, were going strong ; and it was
undoubtedly Koch and Mech resistance (it may be, under the
leadership of the Lunar Dynasty) that brought disaster to the
Turks. A branch of the Koches were undoubtedly the royal
house of Khens or Khyans, which was rulinginKama-rupa up to
1498 A.D., when Nilambar, their last king, was overthrown by
Husain Shah of Bengal. After 1500 A.D., a great Koch chief
and organiser tookhis rise, viz., Bisu or ViSva-Simha ; andhisson
Nara-narayana and his house prevented the Ahomsfromsprcad-
irig their power in Western Assam during the greater part of
the 16th century. Out of this struggle between the Tibeto-
Burman Bodo and the Sino-Si&mese or Thai Ahom, the Ahoms
emerged victorious. But by the time of this final triumph, the
Ahom and the Bo$o had both lost their nerve as independent
peoples — they had both lost their language, or were fairly
advanced on the way to lose it, and had merged into a single
Aryan Assamese-speaking people in Assam.

The Chutiyas had probably been receiving earlier Thai or
Ahom immigrants from the east, and they had become consi-
derably intermixed with them. Their religion was a primitive
kind of animism in which a great Goddess to whom human
sacrifices were offered obtained highest honour ; and this God-
dess, known by her Assamese name Kesd-khaiti ‘the Eater of
Raw Flesh", was identified with Kali ; and thus inclusion of
the Chutiyas within the Hindu Brahmanical fold through Tan-
tricism was rendered easy. They and the other Bodo tribe of
the Morans, living by the Dibru river, were conquered by the
Ahoms ; and the Chutiyas were to some extent absorbed by
the Ahoms. The Ahoms, it would appear, were forced to lake
wives from among their Bodo subjects, and*it is thus likely that
they approximated more and more with the original people.
But it was certainly a clear indication of their being a real
Herrenvolk in Assam, that they were able to keep their institu-

104

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

tions intact, and even to improve them, and held on to their
language for five centuries.

70. The Early Ahom Kings

Su-ka-pha (1228-1268), the first Ahom king ofEastern Assam,
came with eight noblemen and his tribe of 9,000 men, women
and children ; and he had two elephants and 3C0 horses. This
was the nucleus of Ahom power and the great Ahom army in
Assam, that kept the troops of the Great Mogul at bay in the
second half of the 17th century. Su-ka-pha’s son and succes-
sor Su-teu-pba (1268-128 1) forced the Bo<?o Kacharis to aban-
don the country to the east of the Dikhu river, and Ahom terri-
tories and Ahom power began to be extended and consolidated
by the following kings. Su-khang-pha (1293-1332) left the
Chufiyas and the Kacharis before fully conquering them, and
tried his strength with the Western Bo^os, the Koch Raja of
Kamata, who later made peace by giving his daughter Rajani
in marriage to Su-khang-pha. From the time of Su-dang-pha
(1397-1407), whose mother was succoured by a Brahman when
through a harem intrigue she was sent adrift on a raft in the
Brahma-putra while she was pregnant, during the absence of
her husband the Ahom king Tyao-khamti in campaign against
theChuiiyas(Tyao-khamti being himself murdered in 1 389), Brah-
mans came to have a great influence inthe Ahomcourt, and with
it the gradual (and finally complete) Hinduisation of the Ahoms
started. Su-dang-pha made war on the Koch raja of Kamata
as the latter refused to give up a chief who had incensed Su-
dang-pha and who sought asylum with the latter ; and the war
was brought to a close by the Koch raja giving to Su-dang-pha
his daughter Bhajani in marriage, together with presents of
elephants, horses, gold and silver and slaves. Su-dang-pha died
in 1407, and he brought all hostile or recalcitrant tribes allied
to the Ahoms completely under his power.

The Nagas, who were in a very primitive state then as later,
were a thorn on the side of the Ahoms, who waged fierce war

HINDUISATION OF THE AHOMS — THE LATER AHOMS

105

on the former, although they did not try seriously to conquer
them in their hills. In the reign of Su-hen-pha (1488-1493),
the Nagas defeated Ahom forces ; and the Ahoms were equally
unsuccessful in a campaign against the Bctfos of Kachar,
whose king made peace on receiving an Ahom princess in
marriage.

71. HINDUISATION OF THE AHOMS : AHOM GODS AND
Goddesses and Hindu Equivalents

As a first step in Hinduising the Ahoms, their gods and their
legends were in a loose way identified with the Hindu gods and
Hindu (Puranic) legends, so that both the Ahoms and the
masses of the Hindus were made to feel that after all the reli-
gions and pantheons of the tv\o peoples were essentially the
same, the only difference being that of language and of emphasis.
This of course is the right attitude to take when a synthesis is
in viaw ; and when we do not have a scriptural religion with a
jealous God, which abrogates all truth and a special grace of
the Divinity to itself and looks upon all other religions as so
many forms of error or devilry which must be destroyed, that
is, when we have a natural religion or religions which have
arisen among the people without claiming an exclusive revela-
tion or dispensation from God, this synthesis becomes easy.
Thus, as we find in the Asam Buranji of Kashinath Tamuli
Phukan, Chao-pha, i.e., the King of Heaven ( Svarga-deva ) was
identified with Leng-dan or Indra , and he was regarded as the
progenitor of the Ahom kings, who came to be known as Indra -
varnsa kings (side by side with the Candra-vatpsa and Surya-
varpsa kings of Hindudom) ; so Ja-ching- pha was identified
with SarasvatU Lung-chcii-net with Vayu, Khan-Khampha-pha
with Devi or Sakti or the Primeval Mother Goddess, Khun- tun
with the Sun-god, and Khun- ban with the Moon-god, Ldu-khe
with Visva karman. The Ahoms it would appear were also
sympathetic towards this kind of synthesis, and this made their
Hinduisation easier, and inevitable.

106

KiRATA-JANA-KRTI

72. The Later Ahom Kings : Highest Glory of
the Ahoms in the 17th and 18th Centuries : Kings
Gadaduar Simha (Su-pat-pha), 1681*1696, and
Rudra Simha (Su-khrung-pha), 1696-1714

King Su-hung-mung (1497-1539) first assumed a Sanskrit
name, Svarga Narayana, and this shows that the Ahoms had
definitely declared their Hindu sympathies. He made his capi-
tal in the. east by the Dihing river, and he punished the Nagas,
who sent a daughter of a chief to the royal harem as a peace-
offering. There was protracted war with the Chu(iyas, whose
king Dhira Narayana fought the Ahoms with varying success, in
1513, 1520 and 1523, and finally the Chutiya power was crush-
ed for ever, although they revolted fruitlessly in 1527. War
with the Kacharis also started, and there were campaigns in
1526 and 1531, when the Kachan capital Dimapur was attacked.
Su-hung-mung deposed the Kachari king Khunkhara and
placed a nominee Detsung on the Kachan throne, and
Detsung gave his sister in marriage to Su-hung-mung.
In the meanwhile, the Mohammadans (Turks and Pathans
from Bengal) had made a conquest of North Bengal where
they consolidated their power, and attacked the territory of
the Ahom king. From 1527 to 1532, the hostilities continued,
but finally the Ahoms were victorious and the invaders
expelled with great slaughter. Mohammadan prisoners were
settled in Assam, and from this time we have a Mohammadan
population in Assam. Su-hung-mung introduced firearms in
the Ahom army after the Mohammadan war. The Nagas were
also subdued (1536). Detsung, the king of the Kacharis, in
spite of his relationship with Su-hung-mung, revolted againstthe
Ahoms, and a fierce struggle ensued between the Ahoms and
the Kacharis in which Detsung was taken prisoner and put to
death, and the northern portion of the Kachari kingdom was
annexed. Su-hung-mung received in 1537 a friendly visit from
the Koch king Visva Simha who had built up an independent
Koch State in North Bengal, wresting it from the Moham-
madans ; and he exchanged envoys and presents with the king
of Manipur. He was the greatest of the Ahom kings up to his

THE AHOM KINGS SU - KLEN-MUNG, SU-KHAM-PHA, SU-SEN-PHA 107

time, but he was murdered at the instance of his son Su-klen-
mung (who had become estranged from him in 1539), after an
eventful reign of 42 years.

The great Assamese religious leader and reformer Sankara-
deva was born during his reign. Su-hung-mung inclined to
Hindu ways, but he was a good Ahom in following his ancestral
religion and its practices, and the elaborate Rikkhvdn ceremony
as enjoined by the Ahom religion he performed several times.
The Hindu £aka era was introduced, as the old Ahom system
(of Indian origin ultimately), of calculating dates by the cycle
of sixty years was rather cumbrous.

The parricide Su-klen-mung ruled from 1539 to 1552. He
consolidated the Ahom conquests in Kachari territory, and
engaged in a long war with the Koch king Nara-narayana in
which the Ahoms were not successful. This was a great struggle
for power between these two sections of Indo-Mongoloids,
and ultimately the Ahoms were successful, but, not, as has
been said above, before they and their rivals had transformed
themselves completely.

Su-klen-mung was the first Ahom king to issue coins in his
own name. The legends were in Ahom language and script.

The war with the Koches continued unabated during the
reign of his son Su-kham-pha (1552-1603). The Koch king
Nara-narayana had an able general in the person of his brother
Sukla-dhwaj alias Ci\a Ray or the ‘Kite King’ (because of his
swooping tactics in attacking), and peace was ultimately made,
after the Ahoms had been hard pressed, through the interven-
tion of the Mohammadan Sultan of Bengal. Su-kham-pha’s
long reign was punctuated by risings of local chiefs and tribes,
and there were further wars with the Koches in ] 563, 1570 and
1577. But finally, through a division of the Koch kingdom
their power having weakened, the Koch raja of the Eastern
Koch State. Raghu-deva, made peace with Su-kham-pha in
1585 and gave a daughter in manage to the latter.

Su-seng-pha or Pratapa-simha, one of his sons, succeeded
Su-kham-pha and ruled tor 38 years, up till 1641. During his
reign there were protracted wars with the Mohammadans from
the West and with the Kacharis within the frontiers of the

108

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

State, and alliances with the Eastern Koch king. The Ahom
State made a very great progress in all the domains of life.
Brahman influences were on the increase, and non-Ahom
Hindus began to take a greater share in the affairs of the
State. The arts, and literature in Assamese, began to flourish.
The successful war with the Mohammadan invaders was no
mean achievement. The border tribes like the Miris and Dallas
in the North and the Nagas in the East were kept in check.

, After Pratapa-simha’s death he was succeeded by two of his
sons who ruled indifferently from 1641 to 1648, and then came
to the throne Su-tam-la or Jaya-dhwaja Simha (1648-1663). He
waged war against the Dallas, the Nagas and the Miris, and for
the first time the Ahorns interfered in the affairs of the Hindu-
ised Khasi (Jaintia) State. During Jaya-dhwaja’s reign, war
with the Mohammadans (this time the Moguls) began, and Mir
Jumlah, the Mogul governor of Bengal, attacked Assam and
pushed as far as and occupied Garhgaon, the Ahom capital.
But the Ahom put up a stiff fight, and what with the rains and
with the determined resistance of the people, Mir Jumlah was
glad to make peace in January 1663 and return with his forces
to Bengal, after annexing Assam as far as the Bharali river.
Jaya-dhwaja Simha first issued coins with Sanskrit legends in
the Bengali-Assamese character, and the legends were in the
style of that affected by the Koch kings beginning from Nara-
na ray ana.

Assamese and Ahom culture was at its height in the 17th
century, and Mohammadan historians have testified to the
beauty and magnificence of the wooden palaces of the Ahom
kings at Garhgaon.

Hostilities were renewed by the Moguls in the reign of the
next king Su-pung-mung or Chakra-dhwaja Simha (1663-
1669), and Chakra-dhwaja distinguished himself in this war,
having conquered back Gauhati and Pan^u from the Moguls.
With fresh reinforcements, the Moguls made an attack in 1669,
with the Hindu general Rama Simha (the son of Raja Jaya Simha
of Amber) leading the attack on the Mogul side. The Moguls
ultimately were forced to retire, and the Ahorns recovered
Kama-rupa in 1671. During this campaign, the Ahom general

GADADHAR SIM HA & JAYAMATI KUMWARI : RUDRA SIMHA 109

Lachit Bar-phukan distinguished himself. He got the better of
the Mogul generals Saiyad Sana, Saiyad Firozand Rama Simha
(who was suported by reinforcements sent by Aurangzeb under
Sharif Khan), and won finally a signal victory at Saraighat,
which led to the close of hostilities in 1678.

Between 1669 and 1681, seven weak and incompetent kings
sat on the Ahom throne, mostly the pawns in the hands of the
nobles ; and finally, in 1681, came to the throne Su-pat-pha or
Gadadhar Simha, who ruled until 1695. A great warrior and
a strong king, who countenanced the Hindus but retained to the
fullest his Ahom faith and Ahom ways, he finally drove the
Moguls from Assam, besides organising successful punitive ex-
peditions against the Miris and the Nagas. After his death his
body was interred in the royal Ahom cemetery at Charaides,
and the Ahom rites were followed at the funeral and after.

Gadadhar Simha, before he became king, was at one time a
fugitive to save himself from. the ruling king the Ldra Raja,
and his wife Jayamati Kumwari was apprehended and tortured
inhumanly to give information about her husband’s where-
abouts. This she refused to do, even when her husband himself
came in secret and asked her to do so. She died, and became
Assam’s paragon devoted wife, like Sita and Savitri, whose
memory is still honoured by the people.

Gadadhar Simha’s son Rudra Simha, or Su-khrung-pha
(1696-1 714), was a great king, and a visionary who strove to
form a confederacy of the Hindu States in Eastern India, inclu-
ding Tripura, Koch Bihar, Morang or Mithila-Nepal (Newar)
State, Vishnupur, Ba^nagar or Rajshahi, and Burdwan, to
fight the Mogul in Bengal and restore Hindu sovereignty in
Eastern India. With this end in view, he was preparing for war,
and had actually taken the field against the Moguls in Bengal,
when death cut him short. The secret letters ( rahasya-patras ) he
wrote to the Raja of Tripura and other Hindu States asking for
their co-operation in saving ‘the (Hindu) religion as set forth in
the Vedas’ from the aggression of the Moguls and other Muslims,
indicate his staunch Hindu nationalistic sentiments. He could
have been a SivajI for Eastern India — he wanted to push to its
final end the work of clearing the country of the anti-Hindu

110

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

power which his father had begun. He was withal a great
patron of arts and letters, and had become a devoted Hindu,
having sent Brahmans to Gaya to perform the s radii of his
father king Gadadhar Simha. Artists, artisans, musicians, dan-
cers and architects, as well as scholars, were invited by him to
Assam, and in general he had considerably raised the material
and intellectual culture of Assam. He had also conquered the
Kachar and Jaintia kingdoms, and thus had made himself com-
plete master of both the Brahma-putra Valley and the Hill
States to the south.

The apogee of the Indo-Mongoloid Ahom State was thus,
achieved by 1715. After this, we have a period of gradual
decay of Ahom power, and their complete merging (along with
the majority of the Bodo-speakers of the Assam Valley) into
an Assamese people, speaking the Aryan Asamiyd language.
This history need not detain us.

73. The Achievements of the Ahoms

The Ahoms unquestionably made a great contribution to the
life and culture of Assam and Eastern India. They were not
thinkers or dreamers — religion or philosophy or literature was
not their forte. They appear not to have given anything worth
mentioning in the domain of religion in the evolution of
Hinduism in Assam. But as a practical people they gave to
Assam a system of administration in which among other things
the population was organised on a military basis, and this
organisation enabled Assam to give the stiffest resistance to
the several Mohammadan invasions quite successfully. Above
all, the Ahoms were great soldiers, and thev could train other
peoples to fight beside them. They were open to ideas — they
took to the use of the firearms and were able to succeed in it
well, and they were eager to profit by the more advanced cul-
ture of the Bengalis and other westerners. They adopted the
land-revenue system of the Moguls after it had once been intro-
duced by them in West Assam. They had a sense of actualities
— the historical sense : and they gave to Assam a unique thing

THE KOCH PEOPLE, AND THE KOCH EMPIRE ( 1 6th CENTURY) 111

in Indian literature — systematic chronicles of a country or a
dynasty or an episode, in a series of history books written in
Ahom, and in Assamese on the model of Ahom. In the for-
mation of the Buranji style of history-writing, there might have
been some indirect Chinese influence on Ahom ; and in Assamese
Buranji writing, it is to be looked into if the Indo-Persian histories
had anything to do. Although the Ahoms formed a compara-
tively small ruling class, we cannot conceive of medieval and
modern Assam without this remarkable Indo-Mongoloid peo-
ple. They did a great deal to organise the people of Assam
socially. In their work of consolidating the social organisa-
tion of Assam, the statesmanly minister of king Su-hung-
mung, Momai Tamuli Bar-barua ( c . 1530) did great service.
The very name of the province comes from that of the class
which gave it a strong and quite a national government for
well-nigh 600 years. The resistance given to the Turks, Afghans
and Moguls in Assam under, Ahom leadership is one of the
most brilliant achievements of Hindu aims to preserve Hindu
culture and relligion in North-eastern India.

74. The Koch Empire of the 16th Century : Early
History of the Bodo-Koch Tribe

The Koch empire under king Nara-narayana and his
brother Sukla-dhwaja, during the second half of the 16th cen-
tury, is another great achievement of the Indo-Mongoloid
Bcdo people, and preparations for this climacteric were going
on for some centuries before that age. If the assumption is
warranted that the Licchavis, Koliyas and Vajjis or Vrjjis of
North Bihar in the 6th century B. C. (see ante , §30) were of
Indo-Mongoloid origin, pure or mixed, then it is quite easy
to think of North Bengal as much as Assam as having an Indo-
Mongoloid population from quite early times. Brahman and
other western Hindu settlements in North Bengal appear to
have been scanty, and it has been mainly during the recent
centuries that Brahmans and ‘caste Hindus’ have felt attracted
to North Bengal districts like Jalpaiguri, Dinajpur, Rangpur,

112

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

and the state of Koch Bihar. The masses of the Norih Bengal
areas are very largely of Bodo origin, or mixed Austric-Dravi-
dian-Mongoloid, where groups of peoples from lower Bengal
( Bhati-des ) and Bihar have penetrated among them. They
can now mainly be described as Koch , i.e., Hinduised or Semi-
Hinduised Bo^o who have abandoned their original Tibeto-Bur-
man speech and have adopted the Northern dialect of Bengali
(which has a close affinity with Assamese) : and when they are a
little too conscious of their Hindu religion and culture and
retain at the same time some vague memory of the glories of
their people, particularly during the days of ViSva Simha and
Nara-narayana, they are proud to call themselves Raj-bamsis and
to claim to be called Kshatriyas ; yet they are quite content at the
same time, for the sake of political advantages, to be classed
as a ‘scheduled caste,’ among the lowly in Hindu society whose
past disabilities are now sought to be atoned for by giving
them some special privileges. , Nothing much is definitely
known about the Koches of North Bengal prior to the 16th
century : they may be described as Western Bodos y an exten-
sion of the great Bodo race of Assam and East Bengal which
at onetime occupied the entire Assam Valley from Sadiya right
up to North Bengal, the Garo Hills, Maimansingh and Sylhet
districts, Kachar district, and Tippera (Comillah) district and
Tripura State, forming a ring round the Austric (Mon-Khmer)

area of the Khasi and Jaintia hills, and flanked in the east and

#

south-east by their near kinsmen the Nagas and their distant
cousins the Kuki-Chins. During the rule of the Palas in Bengal
(the Palas as a house appear to be of Panjab origin — in any
case, they were ordinary North Indian Hindu, and not Indo-
Mongoloids), with their capital at Gauda (Lak$mahavati), the
Koches were gathering strength, and, like their kinsmen in
Assam, had become, at least outwardly, Hinduised ; and it
would appear that by the middle of the 10th century A. D.
they ousted the Pala ruling house from Gauda and established
themselves as rulers, at least in Northern Bengal. The short
Bangafh inscription in Sanskrit from Dinajpur giving a date
880§aka=96$ A.D. briefly states ihe erection of a temple to
3iva by a king of Gautfa who was of the race of the'Kambojas’

‘kam6ca, kawomca, komc, koc, kamboja, kuvaca’ 113

( Kambojanvaya-Gdudapati ). As Rama Prasad Chanda suggested,
Kamboja here can only mean the Koch people of the period
(cf. Hem Chandra Ray, Dynastic History of Northern India, Cal-
cutta, 1931, Vol. I, pp. 308-309; Suniti Kumar Chatterji, Origin
and Development of the Bengali Language , Calcutta, 1926, Vol. I,
p. 69). The present-day Bengali word is Koc, or, rather Komc ,
and this can well be from a Middle Indo-Aryan source-form
*Kawdtpca written *Kamoca, whichcould be properly Sanskntised
as Kamboja , as we noted before. A later Sanskritisation of the
non-nasalised form of the name, Koca , occurs in the Yogini-
Tantra as Kuvaca . Another Sanskritised form of the name,
Koca , viz., Kuvdcaka (this of course gives good sense as 'Evil
Speakers’ or ‘Bad Speakers’ in Sanskrit), is found in the
Padma-Purdna , where certain disparaging statements about this
people are made, showing how they were held in disrepute by
the orthodox Brahmans :

sarva-bhak$ya-ratd mudhd mlqccha go-brahma- ghatakdh,

Kuvdcdkdh pare mlecchd ete kuta-yonayah ;

te$am pdisdciki bhd$d , lokdcdro na vidyate.

— Padma-Purana , Srsp-khanda, Chap. 57, quoted by N.
N. Vasu in his Social History of Kamarupa , Vol. I. Calcutta,
1922, p. 71.

‘These Mlecchas or barbarians are accustomed to eat every-
thing; they are idiotic, and they kill cows and Brahmans : these
other Mleccha Kuvacakas have their birth-place in the hills.
Their language is of pi§aca (demoniac) character, and they have
no (good) social usage.’

There is thus no doubt that the reference is to the Koches
beforetheir Hinduisation, as a barbarous Tibeto-Burman-speak-
ing Indo-Mongoloid people, who had not as yet any regard
for the Brahmans and for the cow, and whose language had no
meaning for the Aryan-speaking Hindus.

Here cannot be any question of the Kamboja (modern Kamboh)
tribefromNorth-Western Panjab, known several centuries earlier,
as coming to Bengal and conquering the Palas and founding a
new ruling house. The Kamboja or Koch-Botfo domination, how-
ever, did not last long — the Pala king Mahipala I ( c . 992-1040),
from the evidence of the inscriptions, drove out the Kambojas
8

114

kirata-jana-krti

and obtained back his paternal or ancestral sovereignty. But
the fact of the Indo-Mongoloids assuming power over the mixed
Hindu people of North Bengal indicates the organisation and
vitality of these people as late as the 10th century. There was
a serious set-back to Pala power in Bengal, however, during
the second half of the lllh century, when East and South
Bengal became independent under the Candras and the Var-
mans, and in North Bengal another dynasty of Hinduised non-
Aryan origin, that of the Kaivartas, was set up ( c . 1080-1100),
when three rulers of this line which drove the Palas out of
Gauda flourished — Divvoka Rudoka and Bhima. The Pala
king Rama-pala ( c . 1084-1126) with the help of friends and
allies {Samantas) mostly from West Bengal, Bihar and North
Bengal, crushed the Kaivarta power and re-established Pala
rule, which endured after that for nearly a century. The exact
racial affinity of these Kaivartas (Sanskritised from a Prakrit
tribal name Kevatta) is not known. The Kevaff a - Kaivartas are
found mentioned in the Asoka inscriptions, evidently as an
Eastern Indian people, whose humble calling (that of fisher-
men) indicated their non-Aryan origin. They were Austric,
rather than Mongoloid, and in the Kaivarta upheaval in North
Bengal, which was formidable enough, we havetoseeasuccessful
though temporary rising of rhe submerged local pre-Aryan
people against a Hindu-Buddhist ruling house of ultimate North
Indian origin.

From the evidence of the Tabaqat-i-Na$iri y as given above
(§ 66), it is clear that the Koches, Meches and Tharus, of pro-
nounced Turkic or Mongoloid features and a distinct Sino-
Tibetan speech, populated North Bengal early in the 13th
century. The Eastern Bo^os (Chutiyas and Kacharis) and the
Western Bodos (the Koches of Hajo and Kamata and the Koches
of Koch Bihar) disputed the possession of the Brahma-putra
Valley with the Ahoms ; and the Western Bo<Jos asserted them-
selves against the decadent Palas and Senas, and resisted the
Mohainmadans, during 1250 to 1500 A.D.

A number of Koch chieftainships or principalities appear
to have been in occupation of the entire country from the
Bharali to the Tista and Karatoya rivers and beyond, probably

THE KHENS— DANUJ A-MARDANA-DEVA

115

including also Dinajpur district, during 1250 to 1500 A. D.
A dynasty of considerable power, the Khen or Khyan dynasty,
established itself at Kamatapur in the first half of the 15th
century, under a chief called Nila-dhwaja. He built his capital
city, the ruins of which extending over a circumference of 19
miles are found by the Dharla river. Nila-dhwaja is said to
have actively worked for the Hinduisation of his people,
although he fought and overthrew the last scion of the Pala
family of Bengal. The Khens claim to be Kayasthas, but it
would appear they are Indo-Mongoloid in their affinity. Nila-
dhwaja was succeeded by his son Cakra-dhwaja, and after him
came his son Nilambara, who was quite an able and powerful
ruler. But he was defeated, and his kingdom was annexed by
the Muslim of Bengal under Sultan Husain Shah in 1498.

74 King Danuja-mardana-deva : an Early Koch Prince ?

In 1416-1418 ( = Saka years 1339-1340) ruled in Bengal a
Hindu prince named Danuja-mardana Deva whose personality
and exact position in the history of Bengal still remain a mys-
tery. Fine silver coins of him bearing the &aka years 1339 and
1340 have been found, giving in Bengali characters his name
Sri Danuja-mardana-deva on one side and the description Sri
Candi- car ana-par ay ana ‘devoted to the feet of Sri Candi', with
date and mint, on the other. The mint-names are Pandu-nagara
(Pan^ua in Hugli or Maldah), CaUgrama (Chittagong), and
Svarqa-grama (Dacca), and they show that Danuja-mardana
had the greater part of Bengal under his control for these two
brief years. He has been sought to be indentified with Raja
Kans (Kfisa or Katyisa — the name is wrongly read as Cans-
Ganesa) mentioned in Mohammadan histories; with a Vatendra
Brahman chief of Bhatudiya ; with a Raja GaneSa of Dinajpur
mentioned in some Bengali Vaishnava works; and with another
king definitely named Danuja-mardana in another Bengali
Vaishnava work; and further, withaKayastha chief from North
Bengal (see Coins of Danuja-mardana-deva and Mahendra-deva ,
two Hindu kings oj Bengal by H. E. Stapleton, pp. 5IT., Journal

116

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Numismatic
Supplement, Sept. 1932, Vol. XXI, 1930, No. 2). He has been
made to fit in with the history of the period, according to
which his son was Yadu (or Jalaluddin, as hecame to be known
on his conversion to Islam). Danuja-mardana tried to effect a
Hindu revival in Bengal : but his personality continues to be a
problem. For aught we know, Danuja-mardana may have been
just one of the North Bengal Koch chiefs who with his sturdy
Koch pdiks or light-armed infantrymen created a diversion in
favour of the Hindus by seizingthe kingshipof Bengal, repeating
the feat of the Koch conquerors of the Bengal throne in the
10th century. The name of the North Bengal district of
Dinaj-pur, given as Dindwj or Danoj ( Danuj ) in Persian his-
tories, unquestionably preserves his name : a large principality
thus came to be associated with him, and the people have
remembered him in this way. As Rakhal Das Banerji had
observed — for the first time after the conquest of North India
by the Turks, Danuja-mardana was the only Hindu king who
coined money in his own name, using the Sanskrit language; and
his name (‘the Crusher of the Demons’) was probably a sobri-
quet taken by himself to celebrate his triumph over theMoham-
madans who were like the demons as enemies of his faith.
Mahendra-deva, who ruled after him for a year was probably
his son, and he too issued coins in the same style ns Danuja-
mardana.

75. Legends on the Coins of the Independent Hindu (Indo-

Mongoloid) Kings of Eastern India, from 1400 A.D.

One thing is noteworthy : the style of legend which Danuja-
mardana adopted on his coins became the model for the Indo-
Mongoloid rulers of North-Eastern India after him, in the 16th
century (the Koches) and the 17th (the Ahoms when they
adopted Sanskrit legends on their coins), as well as theKacharis,
the Austric-speaking Jaintias, and Botfo-spcaking Tipras (slightly
different, perhaps original, in the case of the Tipras). The coins
of Nara-narayana of Koch Bihar (c. 1 540-1 584), the first tocoin

INDO-MONGOLOID COIN-LEGENDS, ]5tH-19tH CENTURIES 117

money in his line, bore legends like the following: obverse— Sri-
Sriman-Nara-ndrdyanasya — Sake 1477 ( — 1555 A.D.), reverse —
Sri-Sri-Siva-carana-katnala-madhukarasya. Jaya-dhwaja Siipha
alias Su-tam-la (1648-1663) was the first Ahom-kinglwho adopted
Sanskrit legends, and in one of his coins we find the following :
obverse, only the title of the king — Sri-Sri-Svarga-Ndrayana-
devasya Sake 1570 (=1647 A D.) ; reverse — Sri-Sri-Hari-Hara-
carana-parayanasya. The subsequent Ahom kings followed
styles which were reminiscent of both the Danuja-mardana
coins, and of the Koch coins. The earliest known coin of the
Kachari kings has the following legend : Sri-Sri-Yaio-ndrayana -
deva-bhupalasya, Sake 1505 (= 1583 A.D.) ; reverse — Hara -
Gauri-carana-pardyana : Hdcengsa-varjxsa-ja (cf. V a santa Chau-
dhuri and Parimal Roy, ‘Coin-types of the Kings of Kachar’
Journal of Ancient Indian History , 1972-73, Vol. VI, Part 1
and 2). Similarly, the oldest coin of the Jaintia kings, that of
Lak$mi-Narayapa, gives the- legend : Sri-Sri-Jayanti-pura -
Purandarasya : Sake 1592 (= 1619 A.D.) ; reverse — Sri-Sri-
Siva-carana-kamala-madhukarasya. The oldest coin of Tripura
hitherto known is that of Dhanya-manikya (e.g., Saka 1467 :
r. 1545). This is however, slightly different in style : on one
side are the names of both the king and his queen (a style later
followed by some Ahom kings in the 18th century)— e.g.,
obverse — Tripurendra Sri- Sri- Dhanya-manikya- Sri- Kamald-de-
vyau , and reverse, figure of lion in conventional Bengali or East
Indian style (the lion is the vehicle of Durga), with the date
Saka 1467 (=1545 A.D.) below. Subsequently, the Tripura
kings brought in the names of their tutelary deities.

All these coins of the Indo-Mongoloid rulers of Koch Bihar,
Assam, Kachar, the Jaintia Hills and Tripura of the 15th-
19th centuries thus have a family resemblance, and in their
Bengali-Assamese lettering and Sanskrit names they present^a
characteristic expression of Hindu Bengal-Assam culture under
Mongoloid auspices. There is another coin of a similar type
in the Indian Museum of Calcutta which has not yet been pro-
perly read : it undoubtedly belongs to some Indo-Mongoloid
king of the 15th-16th century. (Cf. V. A. Smith, Catalogue of
Coins in the Indian Museum , Calcutta, Vol. I, Oxford, 1906,

118

kir.Ata-jana-krti

plate XXXI, figure 13 ; Annual Report for 1913-14 of the
Archaeological Survey of India, Calcutta, 1917, pp. 248fT : Notes
on Indian Numismatics , by R. D. Banerji, plate LXIX.) I read
the legend as (obverse) Sri-Sri-Kama-Vijaya-narayaria-Candi-
carana-pard-(revcrse)- yana-Hari - Candramala-ja- Madana- deva,
with illegible date ( 1445 $aka ~\ 523 A.D. ?) at the bottom of
each side. The late Nalinikanta Bhap.asalx (in a letter written
to me on 2-2-1947, four days before his sudden and very
greatly lamented death) proposed the following reading :
(obverse) Sri-Srikanfha - Vijaya-ndrayana-Candi-carana-para-
(rtvtrst)-yana-Sri-cakra-mdldja Madana-deva . He declared his
inability to read what l thougt was the date. Here we have a
possible Indo-Mongoloid ruler of the 16th century whose name

was Vijaya-ndrdyana Madana-deva, and whose parents

appear to have been named ffari (£ri ?) and Candra (or Cakra )-
mala : but he remains otherwise unknown and unidentified.

76. The Greatest Period of Koch History ; Vi£va
Simha, Nara-nArayana Simha, and Sukla-dhvaja
(Cila-Ray), 16th Century

With the full Hinduisation of the Koches, and the rise in
power of their chiefs, Kshatriya origin was, as was natural,
found out or suggested for them. One powerful Koch chief
Hafia (whose name was Sanskritised to Hari-dasa) was elected,
according to the Koch chronicles in Assamese and Bengali, a
sort of suzerain ( mandala ) over all the Koch chiefs of the
present-day Goalpara district of Assam. Hafia had a son Bi£u
or Bi£a, about whose birth a number of miraculous tales have
grown up : he has been even described as the son of Siva by a
Koch woman, his real paternity being exalted in this way. Bi$u
or Bis3 was the real founder of Koch power. He ruled from
1496 to 1533 (or 1540 ?) A D., and he first made himself king
of Kamata after conquering the local petty chiefs and expell-
ing the Musalmans who were in possession of the area. BiSu
is said to have taken the Hindu name of Vi£va-simha. He
fought with the Ahoms also. Visva-simha was a staunch
patron of Hinduism. He himself was a worshipper of Siva

KOCH KINGS — VlSVA-SJMHA : NARA-NaRaYANA

119

and Durga, revived the 6akta shrine at Kamakhya, invited
Brahmans to settle in his kingdom, and even sent two of his
sons to be educated in Sanskrit at Benares. He oiganised his
Koch and other subjects on a military basis like the Ahoms,
and this was probably one of the secrets of his military prowess.
He died, leaving, it is said, 19 sons, of whom eldest three were
Nara-narayana, $ukia-dhvaja and Nara-simha. Nara-siqaha
usurped the throne during his elder brothers 1 absence at Bena-
res when ViSva-simha died, but Nara-narayana (who was
known also as Maila-deva) and Sukla-dhvaja hurried back to
their homeland, and Nara-simha was driven out. Nara-siipha
eventually after some wanderings is said to have gone to
Bhotan, where he established himself as the local raja.

From 1533 (or 1540), Nara-narayana began his great
career as a ruler and conqueror, and as an organiser and a re-
former ; and in many respects (particularly through his patro-
nage of Sanskrit learning) he was an ideal Hindu king. We
need not go into details of his career — his wars with the Ahoms,
his victories over the Jaintia, Tippera and Sylhet kings (wars in
which his brother &ukla-dhvaja, who was also known as Cila
Ray or 'the Kite King’ because of his ‘Blitz’ tactics, showed
great generalship), his rebuilding of the temple of K&makhya
near Gauhati in 1563, his patronage of. Vaishnava reformers,
his temple and road building activities, and his long and pros-
perous reign of over 40 years. All this makes him one of the
greatest kings of India, a worthy contemporary of Akbar, and
a pre-eminent personage among Indo-Mongoloids. The English
traveller Ralph Fitch visited the Koch country during Nara-
narayana’s reign, and he speaks of the institution of hospitals
for animals and of the aversion of the people to taking life, as
well as of the abundance of cotton and silk cloth and of musk
in the country. Evidently the neo-Vaishnavism of Sankara-
deva of Assam had made great progress among the people— at
least among some sections of it. The part of the Koch country
which Fitch visited bordered on Assam, and this was directly
under Sukla-dhvaja, whom Fitch calls simply Suckel Counse
(i.e., Sukal or Sukla Koipc ) — evidently his people knew him
more commonly by this popular nick-name.

120

KIR AT A-JAN A-KRT1

Nura-narayana and Sukla-dhvaja, like the Ahom rulers
patronising Brahmans and Hinduism, did a great deal to raise
the cultural level of their people. Hinduism was the dominant
religion, but the aboriginal beliefs and rites were allowed full
scope, although these were becoming transformed under the
aegis of Hinduism. He granted full permission for the main-
tenance of the Bodo (Kachan, Koch, Mech) rites and cere-
monies over a particular tract of the realm, and appointed
Kachari or Bodo priests (Jeoris) to minister in some Kali or
Sakti temples ; and to certain other temples he appointed
Brahman priests The Vishnu temple of Haya-grjva Narayapa
at Hajo was restored by Nara-narayana ; and the Kamakhya
temple, an old shrine of hoary antiquity, and of Mongoloid
or possibly even earlier Austric origin, was built by the
brothers. It witnessed the final Brahmanisation of a pre-
Aryan cult : and it is now by far the most important Hindu
religious structure in Assam ; and as one of the 51 Devi-pffhas
or shrines dedicated to the Sakti Goddess, Kamakhya temple
became one of all-India importance. It is a symbol of the final
Aiyanisation or Hinduisation of the indo-Mongolcids of
North-eastern India

Regarding the campaigns and conquests of Nara-iiarayapa
and Sukla-dhvaja, thore is no properly attested history, the
Koch accounts and those on the Ahom side being often in
conflict. But there is no doubt that the brothers built up a
great kingdom, including a good deal of North Bengal, Wes-
tern Assam, the Khasia and Jaintia Hills, Sylhet, and possibly
als< ( part of Tippera -quite an Empire of the East.

But this empire did not last long. It was divided between
the sons of Sukla -dhvaja and of Nara-narayana, and a single
Koch kingdom wa?> split up into two Koch states of Koch
Hajo in Goalpara (Assam) and Koch Bihar m North Bengal.
We arc it >\ concerned with the tedious tale of complicated
fights between these two oft-shoots of the Koch kingdom, and
of the gradual submission of both of them, of Koch Bihar u>
the Moguls on the one hand, and of the Koch Hajo state to
tne Ahomv on the other Disunion, and absence of a master-
hand like the builders of the Koch fortunes the two brothers

fcND OF KOCH GLORY — THE GAROS — THE CHUJ1YAS

121

Nara-narayana and Cila Ray, put an end to Koch glory— the
Western Bodos gradually became partitioned into a number of
petty feudatories, and so they pass out of history, being trans-
formed into the Hindu caste of Rajbamsis on the one hand,
and into the remnants of the race among the still Bctfo-speaking
Rabhas and Meches of North Bengal and Western Assam.
(For Koch history, see E. Gait, History of Assam, Calcutta,
2nd edition, 1926 ; Harendra Narayan Chaudhuri, The Kooch
Bihar Land Settlement , Cooch Bihar, 1900 ; Khan Chaudhuri
Amanatullah Ahmad, Koc-Bihdrer Jtihas , Part I, in Bengali,
1936, with an appraismcnt of the sources of Koch Bihar
history in the last work, Chap. I).

77. The Garos

The fortunes and achievements of the Koches oi Western
Bo^os have been briefly narrated above. The Garos geographi-
cally belong to the Western Bodo area, and their language and
the all but extinct language of the Koches are said to be practi-
cally identical But their isolation in the Garo Hills was res-
ponsible for their backward position and primitive ways — they
have not been drawn into the cross currents of history and
cultural influencing; and until recently', when Hindu and Chris-
tian missions started converting them, there has not been any
disturbance in theif . old way of life. Yet the Garos like their
Bodo and other Tndo-Mongoloid brothers and kinsmen possess
all the latent qualities of the race, and their imagination has
found expression in a number of folk-tales, among which that
of the chaste and loving wife Singwil is singularly beautiful.
Their comparative isolation is suggested by the Yogini-Tantra ,
which calls the Garo Hills Manda-saiia , from Garo mandi =
‘man’, the national name of the Garos for themselves.

The Chutiyas of Ea-h Assam

The Bodos of the East, the Chupyas and the Kachans, ban
?o give resistance to the Ahoms, and although they had on the.

122

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

whole to retire before their more vigorous and militarily better
organised Mongoloid kinsmen, their history is equally full of
movement and their cultural achievement is also noteworthy.
It is largely mixed up with that of the Ahoms, and to some
extent with that of their western neighbours the Khasis (Jain-
tias). The Chutiyas under Brahman inspiration have built up a
traditional history which takes their kings back to the mythical
ages of the Hindu Puranas. This traditional history, and similar
traditional ‘histories’ of all other branches of the Jndo-Mongo-
loids (e.g., the Koches, the Kacharis, the Tipras and others)
and other non-Aryans, are of the nature of Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth’s Historia Britonum tracing the origin of the British
Celts to a supposititious Brutus of Roman legend ; or VergiFs
deriving the lineage of Rome to AEncas of Troy. (See Gait,
History of Assam, p. 41). In the case of totally new conquerors
whose antecedents were matters of common knowledge and
who had their own strongly established traditions and legends,
this affiliation to some fictitious eponymus ancestor from the
Hindu Puranas was not possible, as in the case of the Ahoms ;
and where an old or well-known house became powerful in
very recent times, as in the case of the Koches, the fictitious
affiliation was equally difficult. The fact, however, seems to be
that, as an overflow of Hindu influences from the Hinduised
Botfo people of Kama-rupa, the Chutiyas in the extreme east of
Assam (Sadiya) had also become partially Hinduised by the
beginning of the 1 3th century, when they came into clash with
the Ahom invaders. Their earlier religion entailing human
sacrifices to a Mother Goddess was assimilated to Tantric
Hinduism. They put up a stiff enough fight against the Ahoms,
which was continued for some centuries. But finally, after
being in part absorbed by the Ahoms, they have mainly
become transformed into the Assamese-speaking masses of
Eastern Assam.

79. This Pima-sa or Kacharis

The Kachari section of the Eastern Bo<Jos ha've now taken
their name from the district of Kachar forming in part the

THE HIDIMBA (DIMA-SA) PEOPLE

123

Surma Valley and including the range of hills which make up
the watershed between the Brahma-putra and Surma Valleys :
the name Kdchdr meaning ‘low lands’, or ‘border lands’, comes
from a Sanskrit kak$a-vd(a ( kdchada , kdchdr). Originally, their
seat of power was further to the north, along the south bank
of the Brahma-putra and along the Dhansiri river : they have
preserved the memory of their original home through their
own name for themselves — Dimd-sa % ‘Sons of the Big Water’,
that is, the Brahma-putra. The capital city they built after
they came within the pale of Hinduism, which happened pro-
bably as early as the 13th century, was known as Dima-pur . It
was their metropolis as early as the 15th century. Fuller Hindui-
sation of the Kachari ruling class appears to have begun from
this century. From the end of this century, we have their kings
bearing Hindu or Sanskrit names. It was probably from the
13th or circa 12th century that the name Dimapur was quite
arbitrarily Sanskrit ised into Hidimbd-pura , and in this way a
connexion was established between Kacharis and Hicjimba,
the Rakshasi or non-Aryan wife of Bhlma the Pan^ava hero of
the Mahdbhdrata. It was then believed that the first line of
Kachari kings was descended from Ghatotkaca, the son of
Bhima and Hidiiiiba, who was slain in the Kurukshetra battle.
Ghatotkaca’s son Sasempha was the king of the Kacharis
Sasempha’s line became extinct, and a new line was started by
a king about whom there was a native Kachari (non-Hindu)
legend — he was born miraculously of a virgin. But the Kachari
kingdom continued to be described as the State of Hi^imba
(or Heramba , as a modification of the name) and a connexion
with Ghatotkaca was tacitly admitted. (The Chutiyas, own
brothers to the Kacharis, were similarly looked upon as descen-
ded from Bhi$maka, the father of Rukmini, one of the wives
of Krishna). The Kacharis (and also the Chutiyas— and simi-
larly the Mon-Khmer speaking Jaintias) did not preserve their
old traditions— what little we get, we get from the Assamese
Buranjis. We find the Kacharis in conflict with the Ahoms soon
after the arrival of the latter. We find the firsthistoricaiking of
theKacharis mentiond in the Buranjis — he was Khun-kara, who
died c. 1531 A.D. He was followed by Detsung, who like his

124

KIRATA- JANA-KRTl

predecessor, fought with the Ahoms. The Kachari king Ya§o-
narayana-deva ruled during the last quarter of the 16th century,
and his silver coin of Saka 1505 - 1583 gives his name in
Sanskrit with a statement that he was a devotee of Siva and
Uma (Hara-Gauri), and mentions, evidently as a matter of
pride, that he is of the family of Hacengsa (see § 75). Wc do
not know anything of this Indo-Mongoloid prince Hacengsa,
with an unquestionably Bodo name. Before Ya£o-narayana,
during Detsung’s wars with the Ahoms, the Kacharis got the
worst of it when their capital Dima-pur was captured by the
Ahoms, and they deserted their old capital and pushed south-
wards and built a new capital at Maibong. Yaso-narayana was
defeated by the Koches, who were akin to his own people in
race and language, though more advanced with their Hindu
culture.

We have a series of Kachari kings from 1606 onwards. After
Ya$6-narayana, c. 1583 A.D., ,we have a Kachari king named
Bhlma-darpa or Bhlma-bala, c . 1637 A.D., who raided the
Ahom villages near the Dhansiri Valley. His son was Indra-
vallabha (silver coin dated Saka 1550=1628 A.D.). Another
king was Hariscapdra-narayana, an inscription of his has been
found of the rock-cut temple at Maibong, as follows : Sri-Srt-
Rana-Candi~padarvinda-madhukarasya\ Begd Gohai Sri-Sri-Rasa-
Hitfambesa-Sri-Sri-Hariscandra- narayana! jnrpasya Sdka Subham
astuSakdbda 1643 ( = A. D. 1 721 )l Marga-sir$a-sya dvada&a- divas a-
gate Bhumiputra-jvasara Pd$dna-nirmitam Prasadarp sampurnam
itij/( A. C. Chaudhuri — ‘Sri-Haffer Itivrtta’). The Kacharis,
after the eclipse of Koch power, had to struggle with the
Ahoms on the one hand and their western neighbours the Jain-
tias (or Khasis) on the other. These tripartite wars went on
throughout the 17th century, and we have a number of romantic
episodes in the course of them, which we find narrated in the
Assamese Buranjis. The Kachari king Satru-damana, who later
assumed the title of Pratapa-Narayana, fought the Jaintia king
Dhana-manikya and forced him to pay tribute ; and when
through the machination of Dhana-manikya’s son Yaso-manikya
the Ahoms attacked the Kachari king, the latter defeated them,
and in honour of his victory assumed the name of Pratapa-

THE KACHARI KINGS

125

Narayana and gave his capital Maibong a Sanskrit name Kirtti-
pura. In the reign of Jahangir, Pratapa-Narayana had to fight
with the Moguls who invaded Kachar territory, and peace was
made by the Kachar king paying tribute.

Two gold coins of the Kachari kings have been found :
(i) obverse, Sri-Srl Bhlma/darpa-ndraya\na Bhupalasya/ Sake
1552 ( = A.D. 1630) : reverse — Sri-SrilSiva-caranajkamala-mal
dhukarasya/l ; (ii) obverse — Sri-Sri-Harijfcandra-ndlrdyanasyal
Sake 1642 (=A.D. 1720) : reverse — Sri-SrilSivacaranalkama-
la-ma! dhukarasya / / (see Vasanta Chaudhuri and Parimal Ray, ‘A
Unique Gold Coin Type of the Kachari Kings', Monthly Bulle-
tin of the Asiatic Society , Calcutta, Vol. V., no. 9, September
1970 : gold coins struck as tax-money for king Nara-narayana
of Koch Bihar).

Subsequent Kachari rulers have no importance, excepting
that their wars with the Jaintias and Ahoms continued off and
on. The Kachari king Tamra-dhwaja was worsted by the
Jaintia king Rama Simha and taken prisoner. But his wife
Candra-prabha managed to send a letter to the Ahom king
Rudra Simha (Su-khrung-pha) for help, and Rudra Simha
intervened, and in this conflict the Ahom king obtained the
submission of both Kachar and Jaintia rulers (1708 A.D.).

The Kacharis had come within the pale of Hindu peoples,
but a great many pre-Hindu customs obtained among them.
In 1790, the Kachari king Krishna Candra and his brother
Govinda Candra both obtained from the Brahmans a formal
declaration that they were Kshatriyas, descended from Bhlma,
after performing a ceremoney of passing through the copper
effigy of a cow, and a pedigree of the royal line up to Bhima
was found for them. During the reign of Govinda Candra,
there was a rebellion in North Kachar, and attacks by the
Manipuris, which gave the coup de grace to the already deca-
dent Kachar State. Govinda Candra was driven out of his
kingdom and fled to Sylhet, and he appealed to the British for
help. Then took place the Burmese invasion of Assam The
army of the East India Company repulsed the Burmese from
Kachar and the Surma Valley, and war against the Burmese
continued in the Brahma-putra Valley, where the Burmese com

126

kirata~mna*krti

mittcd most cruel atrocities on the people. Finally the Burmese
weredrivenout of Assam, and a Manipur prince Gambhir Singh
joined the campaign against the Burmese and drove them out
of Manipur. After the peace with the Burmese (1826), Govinda
Candra was reinstated as a tributary of the East India Company.
Govinda Candra proved to be a most effete and exacting
ruler, and he could not bring peace in his country from internal
troubles. As he died childless, his kingdom was taken over
by the English with the full support of his people in 1832. So
ended the Kachari line of kings.

The Kachans did not achieve much in art or letters, but in
the early stage of their power when they built Dimapur they
showed themselves to be gifted architects. The ruins of Dima*
pur with its huge structures and hall of stupendous decorated
columns all in brick show something quite unique in the culture
of the Indo-Mongoloids. The Ahoms who built in wood were
impressed by Dima-pur as a city of brick, and they described
Pima-pur as Che-din-chi-pin , “Town Earth Burn Make”, i e.,
‘Brick Town’.

80. The Indo-Mongoloids in Sylhet

We now come to the Bodos of the South, who occupied
Sylhet, probably also Maimansingh to the East of the Brahma-
putra, Comilla and Tippera (Tripura). The early history of
Sylhet is not known, but it would appear that the fertile Surma
Valley area attracted Aryan-speaking settlers from the West,
Dacca and Maimansingh and beyond, and the Aryan language
spread in the wake of the spread of agricultural communities ;
and in this way a wedge of Aryan language was spread through
the plain lands of Sylhet between the Bodos of the East and those
of Tripura. The local Bodochiefs were Aryanised, and they were
given the same pedigree as the ruling house of Kachar, as they
had the same speech — Bhima and Hidimba’s son Ghafotkaca
was made their ancestor. We have two copper-plate grants
of two, Sylhet princes, Ke£ava-deva alias iRipuraja-Gopi-
Govfnda, and his son l£ana-deva, recording gifts of land for

THE SYLHET INDO-MONGOLOIDS

127

two temples, one of Siva from Ke$ava-deva and the other of
Vishpu from ISana-deva. From these two grants we get a line
of 5 kings up to I§ana-deva : the founder of the family was
Khara-vana or Nava-glrvapa, and a date in the Kali era in
KeSava-deva’s grant is supposed to agree with 1245 A.D.
These princes trace their descent from Ghafotkaca : so that al-
ready the affiliation of the Botfo princes to the Pandavas had
become established as early as the 13th century, and the Dima-
sa (or Dima-pura)=Hidimba equation had spread from the
Brahma-putra side to the Surma Valley. In Sylhet, there are a
number of place-names ending in the element canga or carp
{can, pronounced tsdng , or sdiig) : this seems to be the Botfo
word for ‘country*, found in Garo as sang. We still have the
element cang {tsong) in present-day Bengali village names in
the locality.

Sylhet had practically become a part of Bengal, having be-
come the home of a large population of Brahmans and others
from both East and West Bengal after the Turki conquest of
that part of the province early in the 13th century, when it too
was brought under the power ol the Muslim Sultan of Bengal
in 1303 A.D: Prior to that, there was considerable penetration
of Sylhet by Muslim preachers from the West, from Eastern
Uttar Pradesh, and its present-day Muslim preponderance*
seems to go back to the end of the 13th century.

81. Islam and the Indo-Mcngoloids of North and
East Bengal

The masses, who are the descendants of the Bo<Jos pure or
mixed in North Bengal and East Bengal— in Rangpur, inBogra,in
Maimansingh,inComilla and inSylhet — are now largely Moham-
madan in religious affiliation. This preponderance of the
adherents of Islam over those ol Hinduism is not very old — it is
rather recent : yet it started with the 13th century. Islam was
successful primarily, it would appear, because the Brahmanical
Hinduism of the upper classes was not yet deeply rooted among
the Indo-Mongoloid masses. The sociological reason for this

128

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

should be enquired into, but the simplicity ofthelslamiccreedin
front of the complications of Puranicand Tantric Hinduism, com-
bined with its prestige as the faith of a powerful and conquer-
ing community, gave it an initial advantage, which was strength-
ened by certain inherent weaknesses of the Hindu social
organisation (caste restrictions, discouraging marriages of
widows, etc.).

82. The Southern Bodos : the Old Kingdom of
Patti k era (Co mill a)

Connected with Sylhet in the south are Comilia and Tri-
pura The latter still is the home of a Bodo people and has
a ruling house and an aristocracy wiih a Bodo background,
while Comilia is entirely Aryanised in speech. During the
second half of the first millennium A.D., Comilia, as recent
excavations in the Lalmai mounds near Comilia town have
shown, was the seat of an important Hindu kingdom, that of
Pa((ikera. Sylhet was probably part of this kingdom. Coins
of Pattikera, with the name of the state or city Pattikera and
figure of Siva's bull and trident, have been found, which would
show that the ruling house was Saivite. The 7th 11th centuries
formed the most flourishing period for Pattikera. It is quite
conceivable that Pattikera during the second half of the first
millennium A.D. was a fully Hinduised Indo-Mongoloid king-
dom, an outpost of Indo-Mongoloid culture in the farthest east
of India : and we know that Pattikera was a centre for the
spread of Hindu culture and Hindu ideas into Burma by the
land route.

From the Burmese side, we have some evidence about
Pattikera connexions with both the original Austric Mons
(Rmefi) and the conquering Tibeto-Burman Burmese (Mranma,
Myamma, Byamma)of t lie city Pagan < Pukam)m the 1 1 th century.
Pagan was at the height of its glory under its kings of Burmese
(Mran-ma) nationality and speech, Amruddha or Amiruddha
(Anowyahta) and Kyan-cac-sah (Kyanzittha). Kyanzittha ruled
from 1084 to 1112 A.D , and he was a great warrior and

‘-KfiRA, -KfiLA’— INDO-MONGOLOIDS IN BASTAR ? 129

a great builder who created among other structures the famous
Ananda Caitya of Pagan in 1090. We find evidence of the in-
fluence of Eastern India (Magadha and Bengal) on the art of
Burma in the stone bas-reliefs and terracottas of the Ananda
Caitya, but the Burmese artists (Mon mostly, as well as Bur-
mese) were already assimilating Indian art traditions and
making them their own by evolving a distinct local style. Patti-
kera, or Palikkara as the name is written in the Maharaja -
vansa {Mahay azawen) and other Burmese annals, had close
connexions with Pagan at this time. It is said that a prince
from Palikkara found himself in Kyanzittha’s court. He was in
all likelihood a Hindu Bodo. He loved the daughter of the
Burmese king, and this love was reciprocated. But acting under
the advice of his ministers, Kyanzittha publicly disallowed
their marriage. This the prince took to heart and committed
suicide. Later on Kyanzittha’s daughter gave birth to a son,
and Kyanzittha declared this, child to be his successor, who
duly became kin^ as A-lon :-can-suh (Aloungsithu). Other
accounts mention that Kyanzittha's daughter Rhwe-im-san
(Shwe-ein-thi) was married to Co-ywan (Saw-yun), the only son
of Co-luh (Saw-lu), the son of Aniruddha, and Aloungsithu
was born after this marriage (Cf. Lieut. -General Sir Arthur
Phayre, History of Burma , London, 1883, p. 38 ; cf. also C. E.
Hervey, History of Burma , London, 1925, pp. 18-44 for the
history of Kyanzittha). It is quite clear that the courts of
Pattikera and Pagan were in close cultural and possibly also
social relationship with each other. Kyanzittha’s mother
Panca-kalyani was a princess from the Hindu kingdom of Ara-
kan, the capital of which was Vesali ( = Vaisali, the name of
the well-known city in North India which was given by Indian
settlers to a city they founded in far away Arakan).

There is the other East Bengal kingdom of Harikela, men-
tioned in inscriptions (e.g., the Rampal plate of Sri-candra, c.
llth-12th centuries). This Harikela has been identified with
Dacca and East Maimansing districts, and again with Sylliet.
In either case, Harikela is a country or area close to, may be
contiguous with, Pattikera. The common element {Kela or
Kera y Ker) in these two names is noticeable : its meaning and
9

130

KlRATA-MNA-Kp.Tl

affinity arc not known. But there is an ancient pre-Hindu reli-
gious rite among the Tipras which is known as Ker-puja , which
appears to be a ritual in honour of the Earth-goddess and the
Creation (see Kaliprasanna Sen, Sri-rajamala , Vol. I, Agartala,
1336 Tripura eia, pp. 143ff). It is not unlikely that Kela, Kera,
is connected with the Tipra word kir, and may have some
significance connected with the Earth.

The element kera , kela in place names occurs in Northern
and Western Orissa also : e.g., Saraikela (Sadhaikela in Oriya)
to the north of Mayurbhanj, Jaraikela in South Singbhum,
Kumarkera, Birkera and Jaraikela in Gangpur, Laikera in
Sambalpur, Jamunkira in Bamra, and a village Jaraikela to
the west of Jaipur town in Koraput in West Orissa. The pre-
sence of Kirata tribes as far as North Orissa has been suggested
by a passage in the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea (§ 26), and
the opinion has been expressed by an authority like J. H. Hut-
ton that ‘there is a slight but definite Mongoloid element"
among an important Gond tribe of Central India, the
Marias of Bastar. Points of contact or agreement between
the cultures of the Austric and Dravjdian aborigines of
Central India and of the Mongoloids of Assam have also
been noted (cf. Introduction by J. H. Hutton to the Maria
Gonds of Bastar by N. V. Grigson, I.C.S., Oxford University
Press, 1938).

84. The Tipras, and the Tripura (Tippera) Kingdom

Tripura State is now the only area where the Bodo people
still retain a good deal of their medieval political and cultural
milieu , although Hinduisation has made rapid strides among
them. But nearly 303,030 people in the state have still kept
up their old Botfo language, the Tipra or Mrung. The Tripura
(this is how the tribal name has been Sanskritiscd) ruling
house is, according to tradition, of North Indian Kshatriya
origin, claiming kinship with the Pan<Javas as scions of the
lunar race ; and very early immigration of Aryan-speakers from
Upper India among the Tipra section of the Bodos — the South-
ern Botfos — is quite in the nature of things. The Hinduisation

EARLY TIPRA CHIEFS — KlRTTI-DHARA Sc TRIPURA-SUNDARI 131

of the Tipras started quite early, and it appears to have been
achieved largely by the beginning of the 15th century. The
Tripura king Dharma-manikya is said to have inaugurated in
Early Bengali a history of the Tipra royal house, and a work was
created, the first version of the Rdja-mdid , in 1458, through the
joint labours of the Comtdwa (or Cdntdi , in present-day Tipra),
i.e., Tipra priest Durlabhendra and two Brahman scholars
Sukre$vara and Bane$vara. In this Hindu Purana legend sand the
early traditional history of the Botfos of the South (as preserved
in the Tibeto-Burman Bodo, perhaps orally) were synthesised.
At subsequent epochs (c. 1660 and c. 1830) this ‘history’ was
revised and continued, and in this way we get the Bengali
Raja-mala as a verse chronicle of Tripura. The historical value
of this chronicle is not much for the period prior to the 15th
century. Some traditions of the origin of the Tripura house,
which were of Bo$o origin unquestionably, are preserved in
the most valuable Assamese Tripurd-Buranji , written by Ratna
Kandali and Arjun Das in 1646 Saka-- 1724 A.D., who visited
Tripura thrice during 1710-1714 as emissaries from king Rudra
Simha of Assam. The value of this work, being a contempo-
rary account of Tripura, is immense (published, Gauhati, 1938).
The earlier Tripura kings show Sanskrit names where these
names are traditional and fictitious ; and Bodo (Tipra) names
which are plentiful up to the 14th century appear to be genu-
ine. The traditions regarding these kings with Bo<Jo names
appear to have a historical basis. Among the Tipras, the names
of kings generally ended with the word pha which meant
‘father’, and those of the queens with ma", i.e., ‘mother’. The
following names are typical : Duhguru-pha , Kharufig-pha , Cheng -
pha-nai> Mochahg-pha y Chehgkdchag , Chahgethum-pha , Danger -
pha , etc. The chronicles of the Tripura kings are full of
romantic tales.

In the earlier stages of their history, the Tipras appear to
have been intimately connected with the Kacharis, their kins-
men in the North. About 1240 A. D., according to traditional
history, the emperor of Gautfa, probably the Turkr Sultan of
Bengal, invaded Tripura, and the reigning king Kirtti-dhara
alias Chciig-thum-pha was seized with fear and wanted to sue

132

kirAta-jana-krti

for peace. But his wife Queen Tripura-sundari was quite an
Amazon — she forced her husband to fight, and herself took the
command, and after feasting the Kuki and other Tripura troops
with the flesh of buffaloes, mithans , sheep, goats, pigs, deer,
and various kinds of game, and with thousands and thousands
of jars of rice-beer, attacked the Gau$a army, and the Gautja
general Hiravant Khan who was dressed in a golden zirreh or
Persian mail was set upon, and finally the Gautfa troops were
driven back with great slaughter. This was perhaps thefirst victory
of the Southern Indo-Mongoloids over the Turks from Bengal.

Ratna-pha ( c . 1350 A D.) sought asylum in the court of Sul-
tan Shamsuddin of Bengal, and with the help of the Moham-
madan Sultan he attacked Tripura and forced his father king
Dangar-pha to flee to the hills where he died. Ratna-pha
then defeated his brothers and made himself king. From
his time the Tripura kings took up the title or second
name of Mdnikya , which was awarded to Ratna-pha by
the Sultan. Ratna-pha is said to have settled thousands of
Bengali families among the rude Tipras and Kukis ; and this
led to the closer approximation of both the royal family and the
rank and file of the Indo-Mongoloid people of Tripura State to
the Bengalis, in religion and culture ; and it meant also the
establishment of Bengali and Sanskrit as culture and religious
languages of the Tipra people.

According to Professor Kalika-ranjan Qanungo, Ratna-pha
flourished in c. 1275-1290. He was a contemporary of Sultan
Ghiyasuddin Balban. He was at first defeated by Sultan Mughis-
uddln Toghril about 1280, and subsequently on his submission
he was honoured by the Muslim king with the title of Mdnikya.
Toghril was later on defeated and killed by Ghiyasuddin
Balban, as the former declared his independence from Delhi
and became recalcitrant.

The first great king of the Tipras was Dharma-manikya
(c. 1431-1462). He was a patron of learning, i.e., learning in
Bengali and Sanskrit, although he himself was a Bodo speaker.
He inaugurated, as we have just seen, the Raja-mald poetic chro-
nicle of Tripura in Bengali, and he settled Brahmans in his
realm and was himself a staunch Hindu.

TRIPURA K.^G DHANYA-MANIKYA

133

85. King Dhanya-manikya of Tripura

Dhanya-manikya was perhaps the greatest of Tripura mon-
archs (1463-1515), and his queen Kamala-devi was well-known
in Tipra history. Coins in their joint names were issued— the
first coins of Tripura that we know (Saka 1467 ? see § 75). He
crushed the rebellious feudatories and army lords who were
making Tripura weak, and he wanted, with the active support
of his queen, to do away with baneful caste restrictions among
his Kuki and other troops and sought to introduce inter-dining
among them. The Kukis, members of a sister branch of the
Tibeto-Burman people, were the inhabitants of the eastern
parts of the Tripura kingdom, and they were great fighters, and
loyally served the Tripura king on many occasions ; and Dhan-
ya-manikya’s best general was Caycag, probably a Kuki chief,
who won for him many a stiff campaign. Among the various
wars which Dhanya-manikya -waged was one against the
Kacharis, and Caycag was brilliantly successful in this war.
He also brought under his master a large number of Kuki and
other tribes contiguous to Tripura. War against the Muslim
Sultan of Bengal, Husain Shah, started when Tripura troops
seized Chittagong from the Muslims in 1513. Chittagong and
Arakan were both conquered by Dhanya-manikya — his gene-
rals Narayapa, who was given the title Rasahga-mardana or ‘the
Conqueror of Rasanga or Roshang’ (the capital of Arakan),
with Rayeag and Ray Kacham (Kasam) distinguishing them-
selves in the Arakan campaign (c. 1525). War now began with
the Muslim Sultan of Bengal in right earnest, and after a num-
ber of initial reverses, Dhanya-manikya’s army, emboldened by
some magical rites performed by witch-women of the Dora
caste, took recourse to a stratagem and fell upon the Moham-
m.adan army under its generals Haiten Khan and Kara Khan,
and defeated and chased it away from the Tripura territories.

Dhanya-manikya tried to abolish human sacrifices which
used to be performed very frequently before the £akti goddess,
and was able to reduce it to about three only, and then when
suitable war-prisoners were available. His son-in-law He-pak-
lau was killed by some Kukis, and for this condign punishment

134

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

was meted to their chiefs.

He was a patron of literature and of the arts as he was a sol-
dier and conqueror, and he sought to spread the use of Bengali
among the people by encouraging translations into Bengali of
Sanskrit works. He built many temples and got artists to
carve beautiful images ; and he was a great supporter of the
Hindu faith. He was certainly one of the greatest personalities
among the Indo-Mongoloids.

86. King Vijaya-manikya of Tripura (1529-1570)

Dhanya-manikya was followed by his two sons Dhvaja-
manikya and Deva-manikya. The latter conquered Bhulua
in Noakhali district. He was a great Sakta devotee according
to the Tantric rites, and he was* murdered by a Maithil Brah-
man who was his helping priest in these rites and who had an
intrigue with one of the king's junior wives. This Brahman
was killed by the army chief Daitya-narayana, who then made
Vijaya-manikya, a minor son of the murdered Deva-manikya,
king of Tripura. Vijaya-manikya (1529-1570) was a capable
ruler. He conquered Sylhet, Jaintia and Khasia States, and
fought with the Pathans from Bengal, the Sultan of Bengal
Sulaiman Kirani having sent an expedition against Tripura
under Mamarak (Mubarak ?) Khan. As usual, after some ini-
tial successes, the Pathans were defeated, and their general was
brought a prisoner to Udayapur, the Tripura capital. Through
the instance of the C&ntai, the non-Brahman head priest of the
Tipras, the captured general was beheaded as a sacrifice to
Kali. The Pathan Sultan Daud Khan was then engaged in a
life-and-death struggle with the Moguls, and so he could not
think of revenge, and Vijava-manikya, left unrivalled master
of East Bengal, set forth to conquer some parts of the province.
He conquered Vikrampur and Sonar-gaon, and led his victori-
ous troops to the banks of the Brahma-putra. A masterful man,
he died at the age of 47, and he had great contemporaries —
Akbar the Great, and king Nara-narayaiia of Koch Bihar.

THE TRIPURA 14-GODS

135

87. The Later Tripura Kings : Decay of Tripura Power

After the death of Vijaya-manikya, the history of Tripura
is chequered by sordid court intrigues accentuated by murders
for power or for possession of the throne. But the Tipras and
their generals had not yet lost their vigour, they fought success-
fully with the Mohammadans (Moguls), allying themselves
with the Bengal Muslims. King Amara-manikya (1597-1611)
also fought with the Maghs or Arakanese, and his two sons
Raja-dhara and Amara-durlabha distinguished themselves in
this fight against the Arakan Burmese. But finaly, the Arakan-
ese are said to have defeated the Tipras, and advanced as far as
Udayapur, the Tripura capital, and sacked the place (1588).
Ultimately Amara-manikya committed suicide in 1611.

The Moguls appear, however, to have proved too strong for
Tripura, and a Tripura king was led a prisoner to Dacca,
whence he was allowed to go on pilgrimage to Benares and
Brindaban where he died. The history of the Tipras in the
17th century was one of gradual decay, although the State of
Tripura never became a part of the Subah of Bengal. The
rulers of Tippera took less and less interest in the affairs of
Bengal, and were engrossed in their little affairs within the State
only, spending their time in religious and literary exercises
and in internecine strife. The proud description of Tippera
State as Svadhina Tripura or ‘Independent Tripura’ is justified.
The State has now fallen in line with the other feudatory States
in India ; but it is one of smaller member-states of the Union
of India.

88. Religion among the Tipras

Tripura has thus been an area for the expression of some
of the highest qualities of the Indo-Mongoloid people under
Hindu inspiration. The Tipras, like the other Bodo groups,
had their tribal religion much modified by Hinduism. But
among them, and under the asgis of the ruling house of Tripura,
a good deal of their old pre-Hindu religion and its rituals is

136

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

preserved, as part of the State religion. For a number of
centuries, the Tipra Cdmtdwas (as the Assamese writers have
called them in 1724) or Cdntais (as they are now called) or high
priests, and the Tipra Deodhdis or Deodhdris ( Deofis ) have
ministered to the old gods, holding a position in society almost
as exalted as that of the Brahmans. Cdntais and Deodhdis on
the one hand, and Brahmans on the other— the former preser-
ving the old gods (though sometimes under new names) and
the old rites — these are the custodians of Tipra religion : a dual
arrangement which is still in vogue. The ‘national pantheon 1 of
the Tipras consists of a group of 14 gods who were worship-
ped by the Cantdis in a series of 14 metal heads in a temple at
Udaya-pur which formed the Tipra Palladium. This Palladium
or National Shrine of the Tripura People has now been removed
to a suburb of the present capital of the State, Agartala, where
the rites daily take place — with both Brahmans and Cdntais
officiating.

These 14 gods have been identified with the Brahmanical
deities — Siva, Uma, Vi?nu, Sri, Sarasvati, Kumara, GaneSa,
Brahma, the Earth Goddess, the River Ganges (Ganga),
the Sea, the Fire God, Kama and the Himalayas. This use of
men’s heads only, in lieu of full images, is something unique
in Hindu ritual, and this thing is found elsewhere in Tripura
(e.g., heads carved on rock at Unakoti near Kailasahar), and also
in parts of Bengal — in the similar heads of painted terracotta
which are used for images. Human heads, in metal, stone, wood
or terracotta, as symbols of the gods, are an intriguing item in
religious ritual inthe folk-cults— doubtlessofpre-Aryan origin, in
Assam and Bengal, and this haspossibly somethingtodowith the
Naga head-hunting and cult of the head or skull, and with the
Dayak head-hunting among the Austric (Malayan) tribes of far-
away Borneo. Thereare twogreat festivals in Tripuia inwhichthe
Cdntais and Deodhdis participate — the Kharci-puja , and the Ker-
pujd . In the latter rite, there is made a ritualistic use of bull-
roarers ( bhemrd , bhamra) of bamboo slips — a custom not known
in any Brahmanical worship. From the Assamese Tripura- Bur anji ,
we learn that before the 14 gods, non-Brahmanical sacrifices of
buffaloes, methans or wild bisons, pigs, dogs, ducks, pigeons,

TRIPURA MYTHOLOGY

137

goats, pahu or deer or cattle (?), fish, tortoises, and spirituous
drinks were offered, with instrumental music. The rites appear
now to have become much more humane through close contact
with Brahman ideals.

The late Kailas Chandra Sinha gives (in his Raja-maid, pp.
24-28) the original Tipra names of the various Gods worshipped
by them, including those of some of these 14 gods. They are
as follows :

(i) Matai-Katar — Tipra Afa/tfi = ‘God 1 , Katar ~ ‘Great,
Supreme 1 . The Supreme Deity of the Tipras, who
has been identified with Siva Mahadeva.

(ii) and (iii) Lam-Prd — Twin deities, Sky and Sea ( Khab -
dhi — Kha and Abdhi in Sanskrit— or, rather. Earth
and Sea, K$ma and Abdhi : Prd means 'the Sea 1 ).

(iv) San-grama or the Himalaya Mountains. Lam-Pra and
San-grama are looked upon as most potent or living
deities.

(v) Tui-ma or Ganga (the Ganges). Specially worshipped
in the month of Agrahdyana and generally at all other
times. The priests of Tui-ma declare the cause of
illness after consulting the deity while performing
worship in her honour. ( 7wi-ma-== ‘Water Mother 1 ).

(vi) Mdilu-ma — The Goddess of Rice. Identified with
Sri or Lak$mi

(vi i) Khulu-ma — The Goddess of the Cotton Plant.

(viii) Bufhd-chd — The God who is worshipped specially to
cure illness. Bengali, =^‘01d Child’ (?)

(ix) and (x) Bani-rdo and Thani-rao : Two brothers, sons
of Burha-cha. (Bengali r^ = Skt. rava , rava ‘shout,
roar 1 ?)

(xi-xvii) The seven Budiraka sisters. Six of them arc
married, and the 7th is a Goddess who, like the
Goddess of Love in many mythologies, attracts men
and grants them her favours. They are called
Ddkinis or Yoginis by the Hindus (or the Seven Pari
or Fairy Sisters, among Muslims of Tripura).

(xviii) and (xix) The two brothers Goraiyd and Kalaiyd
(Bengali names= c the Fair One 1 and ‘the Dark One 1 )

138

kirAta-jana-krti

who arc worshipped on the last day of the Hindu year
(Caitra Sahkranti ), when the Tipras drink much rice-
beer in their honour for two or three days.

The way in which these 14 main deities of this Kirata peo-
ple have been identified with the major deities of the Brahraani-
cal pantheon, probably as early as the 13th century, is
interesting. The following Sanskrit verses (quoted by Kali-
prasanna Sen, Vidyabhushana, in his Raja-mdla , Part I, Agar-
tala, Tripura Year 1336, pp. 131-132) from the Raja-malika and
the Sanskrit Raja-mdla, give the identification :

Hardmd ( = Hara + Umd), Hari-Ma , Vdni, Kumar 6,

G ana-pa, Vidhih :

K$mabdhir , Gahgd , Sikhi, Kamo , Himddrisca caturdafa ||

( Raja-malika )

Sankaranca Sivdninca M urarirp Kamalarjx tatha |
Bharatmca Kumdranca Ganesarp Vedhasarp tatha II
Dharanlm Jahnavfrp Devirp Payodhim Madanarp tatha |
Hutd&an ca Nagesah ca Devatas tah subhavahah ||

(Sanskrit Raja-mdla.)

This selection of the 14 major deities of Brahmanism in
late medieval times recalls the Greek Pantheon of 14 as given
on the Parthenon frieze — Zeus, Here, Iris, Ares, Demeter, Dio-
nusos, Hermes, Athene, Hephaistos, Poseidon, Apoll6n, Arte-
mis, Aphrodite, Eros — and the 12 chief deities of the Romans
given in the old Latin Saturnine verse —

Juno Vesta Minerva Ceres Diana Venus Mars
Mercurius Jovi Neptunus Volcanus Apollo.

89. Tripura Achievement

The upper classes among the Tipras have an exalted posi-
tion as Kshatriyas among all the aristocratic houses of India.
The military power and statesmanship of their ancestors, parti-
cularly in the 1 5th-l 7th centuries, form a brilliant and a glori-
ous chapter in the history of India, and the heroism of these
Southern Bodos and their Kuki allies in offering resistance to

TRIPURA ACHIEVEMENT

139

foreign invaders is worthy of all praise. Their achievement in
architecture was of no mean order : witness the number of
fine old temples and palaces in Tipura State, now unfortunately
mostly in decay. Some of the Tipra textiles in coloured silk and
cotton, particularly the gold and silver embroidered silk riyah or
breast-covers in narrow strips, is a distinctive and elegant pro-
duction of the textile art which made Tippera famous. Metal
work, wood-carving and sculpture in stone were arts in which
the Tippera people excelled. Tipra contribution to the history
and culture of Eastern India, particularly East Bengal, has its
own unique place.

A gorgeous account of Tripura Culture will be found in the
Assamese historical work the Tripura-Buranji of the 1st decade
of the 18th century. The three fine volumes of the Tripura
Chronicle in Bengali verse, the Raja-mala, as edited with com-
mentaries, notes and illustrations by Kaliprasanna Sen and
published by Tripura Government from Agartala in the years
1336, 1337 and 1341 of Tripura Era ( = A.D. 1926, 1927 and
1931 respectively), give a full account of the Hindu-Botfo cul-
ture of Tripura in all its aspects, with full coloured illustrations
and photographs.

90. Sanskrit and Other Texts, and Pre-Hindu
Indo-Mongoloid Religion

The Bodos and the Ahoms in Bengal and Assam, and the
Meitheis in Manipur as well as the Newars in Nepal, were the
Indo-Mongoloids whose participation in the evolution of reli-
gion and culture and in the course of political history in North-
Eastern India has been quite conspicuous. The religious milieu
that developed on this Indo-Mongoloid background isof course
apparent in the life of these peoples and their descendants. But
a good deal of confused and vague information, though this
information is mostly based on fact, will be found in certain
religious texts, some of the late Puranas and Tantras , both Bud-
dhist and Brahmanical, which deal with the phases of Indian
religion as it developed in Nepal and in Bengal, Assam and

140

kirAta-jana-krti

Tripura and Manipur. The chronicles in the vernacular languages
like Newari and Parbatiya, Assamese and Bengali as well as
Meithei also require such scrutiny. A close study of these
works is still a desideratum — from the point of view of religious
and cultural development. A good beginning has been made
for the earlier, pan-Indian Purartas by Dr. Rajendra Chandra
Hazra in his Studies in the Parana Records on Hindu Rites and
Customs (Dacca, Bangla-Desh, 1940), which is quite a pioneer
work seeking to trace the development of religious ideas and
organisation in Hindudom. Works like the Svayambhu-Purana ,
the Kdlika-Purdna and the Yogini-Tantra can only be expected
to yield important side-lights in the history of the synthesis of
Indo-Mongoloid and Hindu Puranic religion, in at least some
of their aspects. The recent work of Mrs. Saroj-Nalini Parratt
on the Hindu Religion of Manipur (offered as a D. Litt. thesis
before the University of Australia at Canberra in 1974) can
also be mentioned.

91. The Backward Indo-Mongoloids : the North
Assam Tribes : Nagas, Mikirs

The other Indo-Mongoloid groups did not have, so far, any
great part to play, except to some extent the Meitheis or Mani-
puris. The North Assam tribes, the Abor (Adi), Miri, Aka and
Dafla, have remained in the background — they had dealings
with the Assam, and that is all that we know of them. Similarly
the Mishmis. This last tribe has been connected with the Hindu
sacred place of Brahma-kunda, the easternmost place of Hindu
pilgrimage in India, which ParaSurama is said to have visited ;
but the visits of a few Hindu pilgrims could make no impression
on the Mishmis. The Buddhist Khamtis and the Singphos are
late comers from Burma. In the Naga Hills, we have the Nagas,
whose depredations and head-hunting raids made their name
a terror to the plainsmen of Assam. The Nagas for quite a
long time remained the most primitive of the Indo-Mongoloids.
They are related to the Bodos more closely than to the Kuki
tribes to their south. They fought and were punished by the

THE KUKI-CHINS

141

Ahorns, and at times the daughter of a Naga chieftain found a
place in the harem of the Ahoin king, but their influence in the
flow of life and history has been almost nil. Tn one matter, as
noted before, the Nagas (and also the Kukis) have some resem-
blance with the Aryans of late Vedic times— -in their elaborate
‘feasts of merit* involving animal sacrifice (see ante, § 27).
With the wide-spread adoption of Christianity, the Nagas are
now abandoning their old ways. Their language is split up into
a number of mutually unintelligible dialects, which are each
confined to the various sub-tribes of the Nagas, and this is
giving the Aryan language Assamese a chance to establish itself
among them — first as a Lingua Franca , and then as the home
language. Assamese as used by the Nagas has acquired a dis-
tinct name — Nagamese.

There are certain other Naga tribes, more closely related to
the Botfos (like the Empeos, the Kabuis, the Khoiraos), or more
closely connected with the Kukis (like the Mikirs), whose cul-
tural milieu is like that of the Bodos and the Kukis both. The
Mikirs, living in the Mikir Hills in the areas in the north and
east of Khasi and Jaintia Hill Tracts and in the Sibsagar dis-
trict, number 154,893 (1961 Census), and they do not have any
special or distinctive culture of their own, except participating
in a common Tibeto-Burman way of living. One or two of their
folk-tales are charming, particularly that of the Mikir youth
(whose name, curiously enough, is an Aryan one — Harata -
Kunwar , i.e., Sarat-Kumara , thus suggesting Aryan influence on
the story, although its atmosphere is purely Mikir or Indo-
Mongoloid), the young hero, persecuted by his brothers, got a
god’s daughter as his bride (see Edward Stack and Sir Charles
Lyall, The Mikirs, London, David Nutt, 1908).

92. The Kuki-Chins

The Kuki-Chin peoples form the easternmost group of the
Indo-Mongoloids and are the most recent arrivals. Linguisti-
cally they are close to the Burmese, the Lolos and the Kachins or
Singphos ; but culturally they have preserved their primitive

142

kirAta-jana-krti

ways ; and having never accepted Buddhism they have a
totally different cultural milieu from the Burmese, and they
agree more with the Nagas and the Botfos. In India, they are
known as Kukis, and in Burma as Chins. The Lusheis now
known as Mizos, are one of the most well-known of the Kuki-
Chin peoples. Excepting in the case of the Meitheis, they have
not come within the pale of Hinduism. Their movements in the
areas where they are now found (Lushei Hills, Tripura State,
Southern Sylhet, Manipur, and some portions of the Naga
Hills, and Kachar) have to some extent been ascertained. Mani-
pur and the Lushei Hills, as well as Eastern Tripura, and the
adjacent parts of Burma would appear to be the cradle of the
Kuki-Chins. The Kukis of Tripura as subjects of the Tripura
kings took a prominent part in the fight the latter gave to the
Mohammadans from Bengal, and to the Kacharis and Jaintias in
the North, and the Arakanese in the South. The Kukis other
than Meitheis came in contact with the Hindu world in
Tripura and in Kachar by 1500 A.D. at the latest.

93. The Meitheis or Manipuris

The Meitheis or Manipuris are the most advanced section
of the Kuki-Chin people. They were known to the Ahoms as
Mekhali , to the early Assamese as Moglau , to the Kacharis as
A fekhali, and the Shans call them Ka-se and the Burmese Ka -
the. Their early history is not known, although they have a
list of 47 kings up to 1714. Sober history for the Mani-
puris commences with that year. The Manipuris had their
own myths and legends ; and these, after their Hinduisgition,
have been linked up inextricably with Brahmanical legends,
to form a veritable Manipur a- Pur ana : only it is not written
in Sanskrit, but in Manipuri. These legends and myths are
not found in a single book, but in a series of tales or narra-
tives in the Manipuri language, each giving an account of an
independent legend or story. Mutum Sri Jhuion Singh of Imphal
has written a History of Manipur in both Manipuri and English
( Houkhiba Wari— Bijay Pahcali — Manipur Itihas , 3rdedn., 1947,

THE MANIFURIS

143

Imphal, Manipur ; Bejoy Panchalee or History of Manipur in
English, in two parts, Imphal, 1936 and 1941), in which the tradi-
tional account of the early history of Manipur (including crea-
tion myths and myths of the gods) has been given. The same
writer in his History of Manipuri Literature (in Manipuri :
Lairik-Laishu-Kumja Sahitya Itihas : Friends’ Union Press,
Imphal, 1950, pp. 112) has given an account of all Manipuri
works, of the nature of Puranas or otherwise, available so far in
ms. This work is invaluable for the traditional history of the
Meitheis. Pandit £ri Atoinbapu Sarma, Vidyaratna, Pandita-
raja, the eminent Sanskrit scholar and Hindu religious teacher
as well as cultural and political leader of Manipur, who has
brought out a large number of Sanskrit scriptures and oiher
works in Sanskrit and Manipuri, has sought to reconcile, in
the old Brahman way, Hindu or Brahmanical history and tradi-
tion as in the Vedas, the Brahmanas and the Puranas with the
Manipuri or Meithei traditions in history and legends, astro-
nomy and folk-lore, in a series of books and pamphlets in
Manipuri, Sanskrit, English and Hindi (cf. Meitei Hareimaye,
translated into English by A. Dorendrajit Singha, B.A., printed
at the Chufa-chand Press, Imphal, no date; Manipur-ka Sand
tan Dharma, in Hindi, Imphal, 1951).

Similar collections of myths and legends of the Ahoms,
pure and mixed Hindu, as well as those of the Kacharis, the
Tipras and the Jaintias could be designated respectively as an
Asama- Parana, as a Hidimba or Heramba- Parana, as a Tripura
Purana and as a Jay ant a- Pur ana : and such Purdna- like collec-
tions of old Indo-Mongoloid myth and legend may still be made,
but will be impossible in a couple of generations from now —
when the older people who are repositories of these legends
die out.

The Meitheis, before they arrived in the fertile valley of
Manipur, and formed their old settlement at Moirang to the
south of the Loktak lake, were preceded by other Kuki tribes
who now live in Manipur and in East Tripura, and south ofthem
live the- Lusheis and other members of the same Kuki groups.
The Manipur Kukis, along with the Nagas, are gradually be-
coming Hinduised and are being absorbed among the Mani-

144

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

puris. The Meitheis adopted Hinduism fairly early : exactly when
it happened, wc do not know. Manipuri Brahmans (known in
Burma as Kathe Ponnas) are found in Burma where they are engaged
mostly as astrologers, and they would appear to have started to
visit Burma as soon as Brahman settlement&took place in Mani-
pur, and these Brahmans began to take wives locally in Manipur,
andamixed class of Brahmans originated which nevertheless kept
up the old Brahman tradition and the Sanskrit scholarship with
zeal. Definite evidence of Hinduisation through the spread of the
worship of Vishnu is found in Manipur, as early as the 15th
century, when king Kiyamba ruled over the Meitheis, — apart
from traditional accounts which take the matter to a hoary
antiquity. As usual, approximation of the old Meithei religion
to the Hindu Brahmanical one began with the identification of
the gods of the two religions. This must have gone hand in
hand with the advent of the first Hindu missionaries, who
were Brahmans in the first instance (not sent by any organisa-
tion, but individuals drifting on their own from the neigh-
bouring Sylhet and Kachar and beyond) and Vaishnava mendi-
cants in the second, belonging to the North Indian Ramananda
order and the Bengali Chaitanya order, which had establish-
ments in Sylhet.

94. A ‘Manipura-Purana’ : Early Manipuri Myths and
Legendary History

Thus, in this way, the god Mai was identified with Brahma,
Ishing with Vishnu, Nung-shit with 3iva, and Shorarel or Shora -
ren with Indra, Marjing with Kubera, Khoriphaba with Varupa,
Wangbrel with Yama, Irum with Agni, and Taoroinai with
Ananta, the Naga king.

Manipur is mentioned in the Bhavi$ya~Purdria, along with
other lands or provinces of the East :

Varendra-Tamraliptan ca Hedamba- Manipur akam <
Lauhityas Tripur an caiva Jayantakhyarp Su$angakam h

(Quoted by Kaliprasanna Sen, Raja-mald , Vol. I, p. 169 :

Brahma-khanda of the Bhavifya-Purdna.)

MANIPUR HINDUISM : A MANIPURA-PURANA* 145

‘Varendra (North Central Bengal), Tamralipta (South-west
Bengal), Hitfimba (the Knchar kingdom, Dima-pur), Manipura,
the Lauhitya or Brahma-putra tract (Assam proper), the Tri-
pura country, the land named Jayanta ( = the Jaintia country),
and Sushanga ( = North Maimansingh : Susang-Durgapur, the
seat of a formerly powerful Brahman ‘Lord of the Marches’
from the 13th century, still inhabited by the Haijangs, a Benga-
lised Garo or Bodo tribe).*

The above reference may go back to the 13th- 14th centuries,
from the mention of Sushanga. (Cf. Bengal District Gazetteers :
Mymensingh , by F. A. Sachse, I. C. S., Calcutta, 1917 : the
foundation of the present Sushang state was by a Brahman
Someswar Pathak from Kanauj who came towards the end of
the 13th century and established his family with the help of
Sddhus or Hindu mendicant monks among the BodosandKhasis.)
By that time, the Meithei State had got its Sanskrit name of
Manipura. The Manipuris have a legendary explanation of
this Sanskrit name which is given below.

Siva and Uma descended from their heavenly abode in Kai-
lasa with the special intention of settling down in the land of
Manipur for a sojourn. They first came to Nongmaijing or Nila-
kantha hill, and selected certain hills for their residence. These
hills are now among the sacred places in the State of Manipur,
which are visited by thousands of pilgrims. Because Siva was
a newcomer to Manipur, he was given a new name in Manipur,
Poireiton ‘He who has come to a new place'.

In Manipur, Siva caused seven supernatural beings to
descend from the seven-hilled Sanjing or Paradise. These were
the seven planets — (1) Nongmaijing or the Sun, (2) Ningthou-
kaba or the Moon, (3) Leipakpoku or Mars, (4) Yumsaikesa or
Mercury, (5) Sagolsel or Jupiter, (6) Irai or Venus, and (7)
Thangja or Saturn. Of these, Mars had the head of a buffalo,
Mercury that of an elephant, Jupiter that of a deer, and Venus
that of a tiger.

3iva and Uma then went to the north-west of Manipur and
stopped on Koubru or Kumara Hill. One of the reasons why
they came to Manipur was that they wished to perform the
Rasa dance there. Once it had happened that when Krishna

10

146 KIR ATA-JAN A*KRTI

was dancing the Rasa with the Gopis, Siva (with the epithet of
Gopesvara or the Lord of the Herdsmen) and Devi Uma were
acting as door-keepers outside the dance area. Uma heard the
music accompanying the dance and the sound of the dance, and
wished to see it, but Krishna did not permit her. He suggested
Siva and Uma finding some suitable spot where they could per-
form the Rasa themselves. Seeking for such a proper place
for this great Rasa dance, they came to Manipur, and thought
that Koubru hill would be such a place. But the land around
was wet and moist because of too many streams. Siva prayed
to Krishna to make the land dry. Krishna himself came down,
and a place which became dry came to be known as Vishnupur.
Ten divinities accompanied Krishna- Huoba Shorarel or J ndra,
and Kubera, Yama, Varuna, Agni, and Thangjing or Asviru-
Kumara, or Nirrti, Chingkhei-Ningthou or Tsana, Loiya-lopa or
Vayu, and two other deities named Nongsaba and Kongba -
meiromba.

Through the exertions of these gods, the land was freed of
its waters and becamy dry, and of the ten deities, the first eight
became the eight Dik-palas , or Guardians of the Quarters, only
Nongsaba and Kongba-meiroba remaind as Guardians of the
East with Indra {Haoba Shorarel).

When Siva and Uma had come to Manipur, they had found
only Kirata people as dwellers in the land.

When the country was cleared and purified, the Rasa dance
of Siva and Uma was arranged. The gods came with various
instruments to assist in the dance to be held by the Father and
the Mother of the Universe. The serpent king Ananta illumined
the whole country with the gem ( mani ) that was on his head for
the seven days and seven nights that the dance went on. For
this, the land got its name of Mani-pura , 'the City or Land of
the Gem.’

In this way, at the dawn of creation, the land of Manipur
was sanctified by the dance of Siva and Uma. The gods were
very pleased, and they blessed the land of Manipur, that the
land will forever remain green, and the people will be devoted
to the gods. The land originally was named Siva-nagara after
Siva: after the Maha-i dsa dance, k came to be known as Mani -

LEGENDS OF MANIPUR HINDUISM

147

pura. (Does this suggest the prevalence of Saiva Hinduism
before Vaishnavism became established in Manipur ?)

The gods asked Siva to reign over Manipur, but Siva made
the Naga Ananta the ruler of Manipur instead. A subterra-
nean path had been excavated in Manipur through the breath
of Vishnu when lie had incarnated himself as the Boar. Beside
that cavity, on a hill, Ananta-naga established his court and
set his throne. The images of Karttikeya and Ganesa were
placed up on either side of the entrance gate to the palace. A
device to indicate the time was fixed when the palace was
ready. Ananta-naga instituted the boat-race to please the gods,
and the gods and Apsarases were very pleased with this game,
A sort of tug-of-war with a long pole instead of a rope was
also instituted. And Marjing or Kubcra invented the game of
Kang-jci or the polo. The gods formed into two opposing
parties of seven each and first played this game. They are
pleased when this game is played : that is why when there are
plagues or pestilences in the country, the Manipuris offer polo-
sticks and balls to the gods.

Thus Ananta-naga became the first king of Manipur. After
reigning for some time, he descended into his own place, Patala
or the nether regions. Ananta-naga’s connexion with Manipur
is preserved in the figure of the Naga being the special in, fig-
nium of the Manipur rulers — a crowned serpent in many a
complicated coil or twist.

After Ananta-naga, the Gandharva Citra-bhanu became the
king of Manipur. There is no mention in the Manipur tradi-
tion of how he came to obtain the throne.

There is a pure Meithei tradition about the Creation of
Man in Manipur which is preserved in the legend of Loithak-
loikharol in Old Manipuri. It is said that Siva first narrated this
story of creation to Ganesa. The tradition has it as follows :

The Supreme Lord Atiya-Guru-Shidaba, who lived in heaven
(Meithei Atiya — ‘sky or heaven’. Guru- Sanskrit^ ‘Master’,
Shi-daba — ‘immortal’) decided to create mankind. He made a
deity named Kodin issue out of his own body, and asked him
to create a creature which by virtue of its birth will be subjected
to death. Kodin then created seven apes and seven frogs, and

148

KIRATA- JANA* KRTI

placed them before Guru Shidaba . But Guru Shidaba was uot
pleased with these, as these did not possess sense of perception
and discrimination between right and wrong. He told Kodin :
‘Here I stand, make something in my form or shadow.’ Kodin
accordingly created a new shape, but he was powerless to
endow it with life. Then Guru Shidaba gave it the breath of
life from himself, and so man came into being. He let loose
the frogs into water, and the apes into the hills. Man then
came to live in the valley.

Then after this Atiya-Guru-Shidaba created the Sun (Nunrt)
and the Moon ( Tha ), in the form of man. The Sun obtained
the name of Kojin-tu Thok-pa> and the Moon Ashiba. After-
wards Guru Shidaba vanished from the earth.

Atiya-Guru-Shidaba had come out of the earth through
the cavity which was created by the breath of Vishnu as the
Boar. Seven Apsarases or goddesses had arrived on earth with
him. These goddesses (each of whom has her name in Meithei)
were married to the seven Planet-gods, and each of the divine
couples had a son. These seven sons became the ancestors of
the seven Shale/s or clans or sects, and these Shaleis have been
identified with Brahmanical gotras or clans. Thus — (I) Angorrr-
Bharadvaja, or Kausika gotra ; (2) Ningthouja~§ andilya ;
(3) Luwang— Kasyapa ; (4) Khumol or Khumon = Maudgalya
(corrupted to Madhu-kulya) ; (5) Khabangangba — Naimisya, or
Bharadvaja ; (6) Moirang^ Atreya ; and (7) C/;crtg7of=== Bharad-
vaja. The story of the seven clans being derived from these
seven divine beings resembles the Hindu Puranic story of the
seven celestial rsis or sages being the ancestors of the seven
clans of Brahmans. According to another Meithei version of
the legend, the seven Shaleis were derived not from the seven
Planet-gods and their goddess wives, but from different parts
of the body of Guru Shidaba. Like the Brahman in the Hindu
legend originating from the mouth of the Puru$a or the Su-
preme Spirit or Brahma, the Kshatriya from his arms, the
Vaisya from his thigh or loins, and the Sudra from his feet, so
the seven Shaleis came out of the right and left eye, right and
left ear, right and left nostril, and the teeth of Guru Shidaba.

in the Leithak-Ieikharol and other works, we find other

THE BROTHERS SENTRENG & KUPTRENG

149

stories about the primitive gods of Manipur. One characteri-
stic story is about Pakhangba or Sentreng , and Shenarnahi or
Kupircng , two gods, sons of Guru Shidaba. They received
their father's permission to descend to the earth, and came to
Manipur. To test their love and respect for their father, Guru
Shidaba took the form of a dead cow and came floating down
the Vijaya river. The god Sentreng understood that this was
Guru Shidaba, and the two brothers dragged the body out of
the water. Then Guru Shidaba came out in his proper form,
and said he was pleased with them, for they had recognised
him, and gave to Sentreng a new name — Pakhangba , i.e./hewho
knows the father’ (Pa ^father’, khang-ba^'to know’). The
two brothers then cut the carcass of the dead cow into seven
pieces, and divided these among the founders of the seven
Shaleis or clans. One of them received the two eyes and por-
tions of the lower limbs, one the skull, one the heart, another
the four feet, and so forth. The skin of the cow was dried at a
place which got the name of Kangla (from Kang-ba~ ‘to dry’).
Then the seven ancestors of the Shalei clans performed a yajha
or Vedic sacrifice in fi-e with parts of the cow’s body. Thus in
this old Kuki myth an Indo-Aryan touch has been added.

Guru Shidaba announced that he would make kingwhichever
of the two brothers would be able to come back first after making
a tour round the whole world. Of the two brothers, Kuptreng
or Shenarnahi left Kangla to make tins tour ; but acting accor-
ding to advice of the god Leimar en-Shidabi, Sentreng or Pakh-
angba circumambulated round his father’s throne seven times.
Guru Shidaba was very pleased, and regarded this as equivalent
to a tour round the whole world, and accordingly gave the king-
dom to Pakhangba. In the meanwhile, Kuptreng came back and
found his brother already established as king. (There is a
similar Hindu story that on one occasion Ganesa and Kartti-
keya, sons of Siva, disputed who was greater, and GaneSa deci-
ded to go round his mother Parvati, as that was equivalent to
a tour round the world, which Karttikeya undertook to make
on his peacock, to establish priority.) Now, Kuptreng decided
to fight his brother, disputing his right to reign. Pakhangba
got frightened and took refuge among Apsarases or nymphs,

150 KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

and these latter received him with honour, and for his pleasure
performed the Augrihangel dance. Kuptreng or Shenamahi then
began to press upon the earth with his big toes, to kill Pakhangba.
At this Guru Shidaba came up from the nether regions— there the
snake-king Taoroi-nai or Ananta was his vehicle. He made
peace between the brothers by deciding that they were to rule
alternately for one year. During the period of rest from king-
ship, the brothers would receive kingly offerings and worship
from Manipur householders along with the god Leimaren Shidabi .
Then Guru Shidaba vanished from sight, and Leimaren-Shidabi
explained to the two brothers that Guru Shidaba was the
Supreme Spirit. Then the Lord Siva as the five-faced deity
showed himself, and the Sun-god like a burning fire showed
himself with excessive brilliance.

It appears that the Gandharva king Citra-bhanu became
ruler of Manipur after Ananta-naga and the two brothers.
A synthesis or combination with Brahmanical Purana stories
has thus been effected. From Brahma born out of the navel of
Vishnu was born Marici, from Marici came Kasyapa, from
Kasyapa the Sun-god Surya, then successively the sage S&varna,
Citra-kctu, Citra-dhvaja, Citra-bija, Citra-sarva, Citra-raja, and
Citra-bhanu. From Citra-ketu onwards, these rulers were
Gandharvas. Chitrangada, the only child of Citra-bhanu, was
married to Arjuna, the Pantfava prince, heroof the Mahabharata.
The son of Arjuna and Chitrangada was Babhru-vahana, and his
son was Suprabahu, and Suprabahu’s son was Yavishtha.

The Mahabharata and the Meithei Purana have been sought
to be synchronised in this way. Legends of Arjuna’s sojourn
in Manipur are current among the Meitheis, and some spots
in Manipur are associated with Arjuna’s visit. According to
one version of the legend, Yavishtha was thegrandsonof Babhru-
vahana the son of Arjuna, but another version puts in 13 other
kings between Babhru-vahana and Yavishtha, of whom the first
two only have Sanskrit names (Kalapa-candra — rather modern
looking name, and Sakti), and the remaining other names arc-
in the Tibeto-Burman Meithei. Yavishtha is also known as
Pakhangba. Possibly the earlier Pakhangba, son of Guru
Shidaba, popular as a hero-king, was identified with a prince

MEIDINGU (PAKHANGBA) : THE ‘CHEITHAROL KUMBABA’ 151

considered as a descendant of Arjuna. This Pakhangba is also
a popular figure in Manipur. He has been placed by Manipur
chronology to a date 74-194 A.D. : he is said to have reigned
for an abnormally long period of 120 years.

Pakhangba, whoever he was, captured the imagination of the
Meitheis, and he may be looked upon as their first great king
whose date, however, we cannot establish satisfactorily. He
was the son of king Ingou-yanba. Some wonderful tales are
told about his birth. His name was at first Meidingu , but later,
probably emulating the earlier hero-king, he was renamed Pak-
hangba. His rule was remarkable for many reasons. Lists
of the different clans and septs and families are said to have
been made in his time, and these are still operative in the social
affairs of the Meitheis. He promulgated a coinage of thin bell-
metal pieces which are still current and are known as shel.
He inaugurated the writing of an annual chronicle which conti-
nued all through early Manipur history. The chronicle is
known as Cheitharol Kumbaba , and it has already been published
under the editorship of Lairenmayum Iboonggohal Singh and
Ningthoukhongjom Khel-Chandra Singh from the Manipuri
Sahitya Parishad, Imphal, 1967, p. 705. It has not been as yet
translated into English. Meidingu is said to have fallen in
love with Laisra , the daughter of a chief of the Maken clan,
and there is a romantic story connected with his love and
marriage.

95. Later Manipur History : the Story oe
Khamba and Thoibi

After Pakhangba, there is a long list of kings of Manipur
right down to the modern times. The first rulers after Pakhang-
ba have been given excessively long reigns, which shows that all
this history has been a later fabrication, albeit the main events
of these reigns have been given. All these kings aj;e given two
names — oneMeithci,and the other Sanskrit. Thus, Koiba-tombaox
Kshema-candraSimha, Konthoubaox Kavi-candraSiipha, Ayang-
ba or Akhanda pratapa Sirpha, etc. Loyamba or Lavanga Siipha

152

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

ruled from 1074 to 1122 A.D. It was during his time that the
two most famous personalities of romance in Manipur, the
hero Khamba and the princess Thoibi , are said to have lived and
loved and died. The story of Khamba and Thoibi may be des-
cribed as ‘the national romantic tale’ of the Meitheis. There
are ballads narrating the story which are still sung among the
Manipur people, and we are told how the orphan boy Khamba
and the princess Thoibi loved each other, how Khamba per-
formed deeds of valour and prowess to win her, how they were
finally married, and how their happy life ended in a tragedy
through Khamba’s foolish suspicion about the fidelity of
Thoibi. The popularity of this story (an English version of
which has been gi \ n by T. C. Hodson in his book The Mei-
theis , London, 1908) is proved by the fact that it has been
treated into a huge poem of some 34,000 lines by a modern
poet of Manipur, Hijum Anganghal Singh (see § 36, ante).

96. Manipur History after the 15th Century : Chaitanya
Vaishnavism in Manipur

From the Purana stage we come down to sober history from
the time of king Kiyamba, who lived in the 15th century.
During his time both Saiva and Vaishnava forms of Hinduism
were current among the people, and Brahmans had begun to
settle there. Meithei or Manipuri obtained an alphabet, pro-
bably in the time of Kiyamba, although a later date, 1700 A.D.,
has been suggested for it. It is an Indian alphabet, with rather
complicated shapes of the letters, which appears to have been
modelled on the Bengali alphabet. A knowledge of this alpha-
bet was confind to the Maibas or priests of the old Manipur
religion — it never spread among the masses. A number of
Manipuri mss. giving old Meithei legends were written in it,
and also works on Manipur history and custom. But a knowledge
of the script remained a specialised subject. The Manipuris
accepted Chaitanya Vaishnavism from Bengal in the middle of
the 18th century, and from that time they adopted the Bengali
script, abandoning their old and complicated alphabet. Some

THE RADHA-KRISHNA CULT IN MANIPUR

153

works of this older traditional literature in the Manipuri script
have been published. But there is a growing literature in modern
Manipuri consisting of translations from the Sanskrit and
Bengali, as well as English, and of original verse and prose
works, which is written and printed in the Bengali script.

Gaucjiyaor Bengali or Chaitanya Vaishnavism came to Manipur
by way of Sylhet. Itstarted from thebeginningof the 18th century.
Sylhet was the home of Chaitanya’s father, although he himself
was born at Nadiya in 1487. Manipur Hinduism gradually be-
came a synthesis of the old Meithei religion with its gods and
goddesses and myths, its own legends and traditions, its social
customs and usages, and its priests and ceremonials, and of
Brahmanical Hinduism with its special worship of Radha and
Krishna. The Manipuris have made the Radha-Krishna legend
their very own. Old pre-Hindu ritualistic dances like the Lai -
Haraoba on 'the Gods’ Rejoicing’ were the basis dt \ which the
exquisitely charming Rasa or ’Radha-Krishna dance-plays have
been built up. The Manipuri Rasa has been introduced to
Bengal by resident Manipuris in Sylhet and elsewhere, and it
was taken up by Rabindranath Tagore in his school at Santinike-
tan, and now it has spread all over India. The Bengali or
North Indian Hindu dress was adopted by the Manipuri men,
and abstinence from the flesh of animals(though not fromfish)as
well as strict adherence to the formalities of Vaishnava religi-
ous practice and way of life now mark off the Meitheis from
other Kirata peoples by whom they are surrounded, and give
a special Hindu atmosphere and a distinction of culture to their
life. Meithei influence is spreading among the other Kuki and
the Naga tribes of the State, and the 8 lacs of people living in
Manipur are ail Manipuri Hindus, Meithci-speaking. in esse or
in posse.

This intensive orientation towards Hindu culture through
Bengal Vaishnavism started with king Pamheiba (1709-1748)
alias Gopal Sirnha or Gharib-nawaz. He may be said to he the
founder of the fame of the present Manipur house. Gharib-
nawaz fought the Burmese fiom P25 onwards, and on one
occasion pushed as far as Ava, the Burmese capital. His son,
however, revolted against him to seize power himself and he

154

KIR ATA- JANA-KUTI

was murdered at the instance of this son. The Burmese wars
went on, and the Manipuris were hard pressed, and in 1768
they sought help from the English in Bengal, then scarcely
established there. After him ruled Moramba or Gaura-syama
Simha, who was a staunch Vaishnava. Chingthang-khomba or
Bhagya-Chandra Jaya Simha (1759-1798) helped to bring about
still more intensive Vaishnavisation of the Manipur people.
From his time, in the place of the old thin fragments of bell-
metal used as coins, a Manipuri coinage came in, rather crude
in form, in which only the initial letters of the names of the
king were given.

King Bhagya-Chandra Simha was the last great ruler of Mani-
pur, and he was a good administrator and politician, and quite a
popular ruler. He was besides a saintly devotee of Krishna and
Radha. Music and Dancing and the Fine Arts received en-
couragement in his hands. Above all, he is entitled to all-India
fame for the popularity he brought to Manipuri Dance all over
India by introducing, with the help of his daughter Maharaj-
kumari Bimbavati, the Manipuri Rasa Dance. Bhagya-Chandra
is said to have had a vision of Krishna with Radha and the Gopis
dancing the Rasa, and Princess Bimbavati, who was an accom-
plished singer and dancer, and quite great in her bhakti to
Krishna and Radha, helped to translate her father’s vision into
the exquisitely charming forms of the Radha-Krishna Rasa
Dance. She transformed the Manipuri religious folk-dance,
the Lai-haoraba , the Dance of Creation and Thanks-giving
to the Gods, which in her hands retained its original beautiful
character, but was sublimated into something mystical, and
still more beautiful, by being employed in the worship of
Krishna and Radha. Through her artistic sense she designed
the remarkably lovely costumes for Radha and the Gopis and
for Krishna for this Rasa , and in this way gaveto India and the
Hindu world a new form of aesthetic and mystical expression,
which has now captured the rest of India. Maharaj-Kumari
Bimbavati of Manipur (c. 1780) thus deserves to have her own
niche of honour in the hall of Indian devotion and mysticism
and culture and art. Bimbavati is now quite aptly described as
the Mira Bai of Manipur. (See Professor Raj-Kumar Sri Jhalajit

MAN1PURI HINDU DOM — MAN I PURI DANCE, ARTS & CRAFTS 155

Singh, A Short History of Manipur > Imphal, 1965, p. 166).

King Gambhir Simha (Chinglen Nongdren-khomba), who
ruled from 1825 to 1853, was a good soldier, and he pushed as
far as Kohima in the heart of the Naga country, in 1833, where
he has left an inscribed memorial stone with symbolical devi-
ces and inscription in Manipuri to mark his victorious sojourn.
He had extended the boundaries of Manipur.

The subsequent history of Manipur is nothing remarkable.
A series of weak rulers followed, and the kingdom was reduced
to a position as a British feudatory, which for 16 years from
1891 was administered by the British Political Agent. In 1949
Manipur joined the Indian Union formally and is now a consti-
tuent state, like the other sister-states in Eastern India,
Gooch Bihar and Tripura. Manipur had suffered a great deal
during the last World War through Japanese bombing, and it
was the arena of the struggle between the British and Ameri-
cans on the one side and the Japanese on the other. The Indian
Army of Independence created by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose
to fight the British in India had arrived as far as Kohima
through Manipur.

97 The Culture or Manipur

The Hindu Meithei culture of Manipur is something quite
distinctive as a creation of an Indo-Mongoloid people, and it is
now evident from the natural and easy beauty and artistic en-
vironment of their life, which, isolated from the rest of India,
still preserves an old-world aroma and atmosphere of its own.
The old Meithei religion and cults have not been suppressed,
but they have been given a new form and content through con-
tact with the Indo-Aryan world of Hindudom, through Sanskrit
and Bengali. The Brahman and Vaishnava spirit is working,
but the Maibas (old Meithei priests) and Maibis (priestesses)
still carry on the old rites which have been harmonised with the
Brahmanica! ones. Old deities like Panthoibi ‘the Daughter of
the Sun\ Yumthai Lai ‘the Establisher of Houses’, and Taibong
Khomba ‘She who makes the Earth to swell’, are members of

156

kirAta-jana-krti

the Meithei Hindu pantheon, and there is no exclusiveness.
And the Khamba and Thoibi romance is still quite popular, as
much as the reading and exposition of the Bhagavata-Pui ana.
The old dances are there, the Meithei or Indo-Mongoloid folk-
clement and mythical bases of which will not be understood in
the rest of India ; but there is the Rasa which is of pan-Indian
popularity now, through Rabindranath's Santiniketan School
of the Dance, through the interpretations of masters of the
modern Indian dance like Uday Sankar, through a number of
eminent Gujarati Artistes and Expositors of the Dance like the
Jhaveri sisters, and Savita Devi,- daughter of Nanji Mehta
(Lohana Nanji Kalidas,— he was a great pioneer in exploring
and opening up Indian business to Eastern and Central
r rica), assisted and guided by Manipuri dance gurus and
pandits , and maibas and maibis , and through performances in
the cinema. The textiles, brass work, wood and ivory work
and other crafts of Manipur are also beautiful. But the greatest
expression of Manipur culture has been through the dance, and
through literature. Mention has been made of some of the
achievements of the Manipur people in the field of literature
before (§ 36). The composite Arya-Kirata culture of Manipur
will have its own special place of honour among the different
forms of provincial or regional culture in India.

Manipur has undoubtedly made her contribution to the
Hindu culture of India, through her Vaishnavism, her dance and
music, her arts and crafts, and her literature. She has fallen
in line with the rest of Hindu India with her acceptance of the
Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Puranas, and also Sanskrit
literature. A scholar and patriot like Pandita-raja Atombapu
Sarma Vidyaratna (1889*1963) has been one of the greatest
teachers and thought-leaders of India, helping the integration
of the Manipur people within the Indian Nation through his
writings and translations, and his political and journalistic as much
as his religious and cultural services to the Manipur people as
an Indian nation-builder of the truest type. Manipuri literature,
speakers of the language being still considerably less than one
million, is quite an advanced literature of Hindu India. (See
Suniti Kumar Cha\itT)\-~ Religious and Cultural Integration of

EARLY AND MODERN PHASES OF MANIPURI LITERATURE 157

India : Atombapu Sarma of Manipur , Atombapu Gaveshana
Kendra, Iraphal, Manipur, 1967 ; also Adivasi Literatures of
India, Indian Literature , Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 1971,
Vol. XIV, No3,pp. 18-27.) The Meithei or Manipuri language has
been rightly given recognition as one of the advanced literary
languages of India, side by side with Bengali, Hindi, Urdu,
Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, etc., by the Sahitya Akademi
or ‘the National Indian Academy of Letters’ of New Delhi.

98. Manipuri (Meithei) Literature

Among the various Tibeto-Burman languages, the most im-
portant, and in literature certainly of much greater importance
than Newari, is the Meithei or Manipuri language. Manipuri is
the official language of the State of Manipur, and forquitea long
timeithas been recognised by She University of Calcutta, — itwas
given a place in the curriculum of that University from the En-
trance or Matriculation to the First Arts or Intermediate and right
up to B.A. examination, Pass and Honours. The same recogni-
tion has been given to it by the University of Gauhati (1949),
so that Manipuri is a language which has an important status
as a language of study and education. At the present-day Mani-
puri is written in the Bengali-Assamese script — it is virtually
the Bengali script, with one letter 3 recently taken over from
Assamese — the letter for w. Manipur had quite a separate alphabet
of its own, which is found in old manuscripts, and it has also
beenput in type. But books areno longer written or printed in this
old Manipuri script, the study of which has become a specialised
subject for scholars and experts. From the time of KingGharib-
nawaz Singh of Manipur (1709-1748), the Manipuri people,
through the influence of the Bengali Vaishnavas of the Chai-
tanya School from Navadwip and Sylhet, accepted the Bengali
script for their language (c. 1740), and now this has become
fully established. This has enabled Manipur to come in intimate
touch with Bengali in its literature, and with Sanskrit. There
is an attempt on the part of a small number of Manipuri patri-
ots to revive the use of the old Manipuri script. But as it is a

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rather complicated system of writing, it does not seem to receive
much support from the people.

The Manipuris, a Meithei people, became Hindus at least
2000 years ago, and in their chronicles, which are mostly preserved
in the Old Manipuri language and in the older script, we have a
fairly detailed history of the Manipuri kings and their Hindu
background. But early Manipuri literature prior to the middle
of the 18th century is more or less a sealed book to the Mani-
puri public. Only Manipuri scholars — Pandits , who specialised
in the language — know about this speech, the vocabulary of
which is now quite archaic, and very different from modern
Manipuri. There are books like the Numit-kappa , narrating
some old Manipuri legends, and there is a rich literature of
chronicles as well as works on the movements of the tribes, in
Manipur, which are all preserved in the Old Manipuri language.
The Manipuri Sahilya Parishad , and some individual scholars
are doing very valuable work infringing out editions of these
books in the current Bengali-Assamese script, with translations
or notes in Modern Manipuri.

The beginnings of this Old Manipuri literature (as in the case
of Newari) may go back to 1500 years, or even 2000 years, from
now. It is said that there is a copper-plate inscription, of King
Khongtekcha, invoking Sri-Hari (i.e., Vishnu with Lakshmi), and
Siva and Devi, dating from 724 Saka (- c. 790 A.D.). But that is
problematical, as the king is said to have ruled the Meitheis
from 763 to 773 A.D. The late Yumjao Singh thought that the
Poiraiton Khunthok , a prose-work describing the settlement of
some Meithei tribes, is ti e oldest work in Manipuri, going back
to the 3rd century A.D. A rich literary tradition is said to have
existed during the closing centuries of the first millennium A.D.
The Cheitharol Kumbaba is one of the oldest Manipuri Court
Chronicles {Kumbaba -kum means ‘year’, now obsolete, and
baba or paba means ‘accounts’). This gives a traditional history
of Manipur from the second century A.D. onwards. The Numit-
kappa y as mentioned before, gives us some old pre-Hindu
mythological tales.

It may be«said that this early Manipuri literature, although
it is fairly extensive,, has not as yet been scientifically studied,

OLD MANIPURI MYTHICAL & ROMANTIC WORKS

159

and we are not sure about the dates when the individual works,
as available now, were first written or compiled. As a preli-
minary step, full lists of these books of Early Manipuri are
being prepared and published by Manipuri scholars. But we
know that the sixteenth Century A.D. was a great period for
the development of Manipuri prose literature of histories and
chronicles. The Nugban Pombi Luwaoba narrates the legendary
history of the hero after whom the book is named, and of his
beloved wife Koubru Namyno. This legend relates the story
of the restoration to life of Koubru, the Gods being moved by
the depth of the love of the husband for his departed wife.

The Leithak Leikharon gives an account of the Manipuri
story of the Creation. This book deals with the history of the
Meithei Gods and Goddesses, and the songs and dances connec-
ted with them. In certain parts of this work, which is very
distinctive, there are lists of the Muslim Pathan kings of Ben-
gal, which shows that it is rather late in origin or compilation.

The Chainarol gives us a collection of some romantic and
heroic stories of ancient times in the history of Manipur.

The ‘National Romantic Legend of Manipur’ — thegreat love-
story of the heroKhamba and Princess Thoibi, which after a
happy union of the two lovers ended in a tragedy, — began to
be treated in Old Meithei ballads from the middle of the twelfth
century. The lovers lived about 1100 A.D., during the rule of
King Loyamba, These ballads used to be sung by wandering
minstrels to the accompaniment of the one-stringed fiddle called
the pena, and this old corpus of romantic baiiadws as later treated
into the great epic romance of 34,000 lines by a modern Meithei
poet, the late Hijum Anganghal Singh, about 1940.

The Ningthouron Lambuba is a historical work giving an
account of the military expansions of the kings of Manipur. It
is in a way a book which supplements the Cheitharol Kumbaba.
A most interesting work is the romantic tale of Prince Nompok-
ninghou and princess Panthoibi, the daughter of King Ching-
Ningthou. They fell violently in love with each other, and
although Panthoibi was later on married to a chief named
Khaba, her husband was frightened of her, and never dared
approach her. The lovers met, but their career was cut short.

160

kirAta-jana-k^ti

This story has been sublimated as a religious myth — the hero
was considered to be an incarnation of Siva, and Panthoibi was
Parvati incarnate, and it was a case of parakiyd love as between
Krishna and Radha which is a very vital mystico-philosophical
doctrine with the Gaudiya Vaishnavism of Navadwip, which
again is the accepted form of Vaishnavism in Manipur. This
work, in Old Manipuuri, of unknown date, has been published
from the Manipuri Sahitya Parishad , Imphal, with translation
in Modern Manipuri by the learned scholar, historian and
lexicographer Sri Ningthoukhongjom Khel-Chandra Singh.

There are similar other books in Manipuri which mostly go
back to the times before the beginning of Gaudiya Vaishnava
influence from Bengal and the influence from North India
through the Ramanandi sadhu missionaries, from the beginning
of the 1 8th century.

From the reign of Gharib-nawaz (c. 1740), a new period
began in the history of Manipur* and in Manipuri literature
also. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana, as the most popu-
lar and in a way the most important texts of Hinduism, began
to be rendered into Manipuri. Manipuri adopted a version of
the Ramayana from the Bengali work of Krttivasa. Portions of
the Mahabharata — the Adi, the Virata and the ASvamedha
Parvans, were also rendered into Manipuri. The older literary
tradition suffered from a set-back, owing to the ill-conceived
and mischievous action of the Ramanandi missionary Santadas
Babaji, whose vandalism in getting together and burning a
number of Old Manipuri mss. appears to have received the sup-
port of Gharib-nawaz himself ; and this continued during the
18th century. But some books in the old style still continued
to be written. One of these is a book known as the Lartgan . It is
of the nature of mrz-literature, in Sanskrit, and has been recently
published.

The burning of the Old Manipuri books, (recalling a simi-
lar happening in Ancient China during the Han Period) how-
ever, fortunately was not very thorough, and a good number of
books escaped this vandalism. These are now preserved, and are
studied, edited and in some cases published.

KingBhagya-Chandra Jaya-SimhaofManipur(c. 1780) brought

EARLY MANIPUR! CULTURE Sc LITERATURE

161

in a great Vaishnava revival. One might say that the confluence
of the early Manipuri and the characterised modern Manipuri
literatures took place during the second half of the 18th century.
There were books in new genres or styles, like travel-books
(e.g., the work describing the pilgrimage of King Bhagya Cljpn-
dra), and genealogical works also came into being. As it has
been said before, Bhagya Chandra with the help of his daughter
Bimbavati, who was a great devotee of Krishna (she has been
called the ‘Mira Baf of Manipur), sublimated Manipuri folk-
dance (the Lai-haraoba y ‘Dance of Creation’) into an emotional
and religious creation of a very high artistic and spiritual
beauty and merit, which has now been accepted by the rest of
India— the Manipuri Rasa .

Treatises on Manipuri dance and music were compiled in
both Sanskrit and Manipuri. There are also Old Manipuri texts
on Medicioe and the Medicinal Herbs of Manipur, as well as
Tantric works on the cure of diseases, besides works on
Astrology. These all show Brahmanical Hindu inspiration and
influence.

There is a sort of a national archive for the most exalted
families of Manipur, which is preserved in the court of the
Maharaja of Manipur, the Sangai Phamang , which is regularly
brought up-to-date. It is of great historical value for Manipur.

A syncretism of the old pre-Hindu Meithei religion, /mytho-
logy and ritual with the Hindu Brahmanical (Puranic) religion,
mythology and ritual started very early ; and with the friendly
co-operation of the Maibas and Maibis (priests and priestesses
of the old Meithei religion) on the one hand and the Brahmans
and Vaishnavas on the other for some centuries, gave to Mani-
pur its own distinctive form of Hinduism. Dance as a ritual
was from ancient times a very beautiful expression of Meithei
ritual. The Old Meithei Gods and Goddesses and their myths
were indentified with Puranic deities and myths, and Puranic
and Vaishnava Ideologies were assimilated.

The Modern Period for Manipuri started with the study of
English, and with the closer contact withthemindofBengalfrom
the last decade of the 19th century. The first Secondary (i.e..
High English) School was founded by Major-General James
11

162

kirata-jana-krti

Johnstone, and it was recognised and fully established at Imphal
in 1891, and was later on affiliated to the University of Cal-
cutta, until the establishment of the University of Gauhati
in Assam in 1948. Meithei boys reading in this school followed
the # curriculum of the Calcutta University, which had made
Sanskrit a compulsory subject (in addition to English and the
mother-tongue) for all Hindu students. Thus at least more than
three generations of Manipuri school-boys had to know some
Sanskrit. There was a very deep religious faith among the
Manipuris for the Vaishnava philosophy and way of life, and
in the Hinduism as inculcated in the Puranas; and this, with
the help of the Sanskrit Pandits, and also the Bengali-Assamese
script of Manipuri, helped to make modern Meithei or* Mani-
puri literature and culture entirely Sanskrit-oriented, almost
as much as Bengali, Assamese and Hindi.

The modern period of Manipuri really came into" existence
with the beginning of the 19th century, after English education
had found a place among the Manipuri people. European
officials and missionaries who came to Manipur, and Bengali
teachers, helped the Manipuris to build a new literature in their
language — men like the Rev. W. Pettigrew, Mr. Wince, Babu
Ramsundar Roy, and educated Manipuris like Makar Singh,
Munal Singh, Jatiswar Singh, and Haodijam Chaitanya Singh,
came forward. The first Manipuri book to be printed was a
History of Manipur, which came out in 1890 in theBengali script,
and at first the new literature in Manipuri could consist only of
text-books in different subjects. Then with the growth of
a school-educated class, other types of literature came in.
Maharaja Churachand Singh (1891-1941) was a great patron
of Manipuri literature. New books were being written and
published in all sorts of subjects, including most of the common
types of literature. And a special aspect of modern Manipuri
literature is its wealth of translations from Sanskrit. In this
matter, Manipuri will be the envy of many other languages of
modern India which are spoken by millions of people.

The Manipuri Sahitya Parishad has published a list of Mani-
puri books printed from 1891 to 1969: the total number of titles
comes up to 1078. It has been claimed that the number can

EARLY MANIPURI CULTURE & LITERATURE

163

easily come to 2000, as the list is not complete. The subjects
include Manipuri History, Hindu Religion and Philosophy,
Translations (from Sanskrit, from Bengali, from English), Bio-
graphies, Old ^danipuri Culture and Institutions, Social.Scien-
ces (Politics, Education, Law), Grammar and Linguistics
(including study of Sanskrit Grammar and Rhetoric and Pro-
sody), the Art of the Dance, Music, General Works on Litera-
ture including History of Literature, Fiction (Novels and Short
Stories), Poetry, Anthologies, Literary Criticism, Scientific Fic-
tion, Essays, Juvenile and Children’s Literature, Humour,
Geography, Autobiographies, Indology, Handicrafts and Tech-
nology, Sexual Science, and Miscellaneous. Thus most of the
departments of literature which are found in any advanced
language are represented in Manipuri, and works of creative
literature like Poetry and Fiction are quite in abundance.

It would perhaps be most convenient for our purpose to
give the names of the most outstanding personalities in Mani-
puri literature in its modern period covering half a century .
First of all I give the names of the great translators, from
Sanskrit and Bengali in the first instance, and then from English.
It was they who transformed the mind and spirit of the Mani-
puris by extending the horizon of their literary experience,
and made them familiar with some of the greatest things in
Indian literature, ancient and modern. They brought the Mani-
puris in line with the rest of advanced India in their thoughts
and ideas and aspirations.

The greatest name in the history ol Manipuri literature,
particularly in this line, is that of Pandita-raja Phurailatpam
Atombapu Sarma Sahitya-ratna (1878-1963). He was great in
so many departments of life and letters — great as a Sanskrit
scholar who made translations into Manipuri of a number of
outstanding religious and other texts from the Language of the
Gods (like the Bhagavata-Puraqa and the Bhagavad-Gita, the
GUa-govinda, Gopala-sahasra-nama, the Mdrkandeya-Candi, the
entire Sarasvata Grammar of Sanskrit with a Meithei commen-
tary, portions of the Rigveda, besides any number of religious
and ritualistic texts). Over and above this, he brought out inter-
pretations and editions of Old Manipuri, texts on history,

164

kirata-jana-krti

literature and the dance, and general works on Sanskrit and
Manipuri culture. He was a giant among scholars, and at the
same time he was a religious teacher, an educationist, a great
publisher of works in Manipuri, and a political jeader who led
his people in the path of freedom from both British inter-
ference and Manipuri medievalism. His illustrious example was
followed by other scholars, like Chingangbam Kalacand Singh
who brought out his Manipuri translation of the entire Sanskrit
Mahabharata (together with the Sanskrit text) in 21 volumes,
besides other works, and a long poem of 12,000 lines on the life
of Krishna (Vdsudeva-Carit). Haobam Iboyaima Singh, a veteran
scholar still active, translated all the writings of the Bengali
poet Michael Madhusudan Datta, besides some of the works of
Sarat Chandra Chatterji, and a good many Sanskrit works.
Apart from these three names, there are dozens of other scho-
lars who made Sanskrit and Bengali literature in some of their
important works available in 'Manipuri. One can read the
Bengali philosophical classic of Vaishnavism, Krishnadas
Kaviraja’s Caitanya-Caritdmfta , as well as most of the novels
of Bankim Chandra Chatterji, a good many of those by Sarat
Chandra Chatterji and of other famous writers of Bengali
(including a recent literary celebrity like Jardsandha) in Mani-
puri. So Shakspere and Ibsen, Tolstoy and Prem Chand,
Vivekananda and Gandhi, Rabindranath and Kalidasa, can at
least in some of their important works be read in Manipuri. (A
fine translation, by a number of scholars and poets, of a re-
presentative selection of poems, songs, dramas and stories from
Rabindranath Tagore into Manipuri— the Rabindra Nacom , has
recently been published by the Sahitya Akademi of Delhi.)

In creative literature, the following are the most important
names. In fiction (novels and short stories) : Dr. Lamabam
Kama! Singh, whose romantic-realistic social novel Madhavi
published in the thirties of this century, was a pioneer work ;
Hijom Anganghal Singh (1894-1939), who was a great as a poet
(his epic-romantic poem on the love-story of Khamba and
Thoibi in 34,000 lines, c. 1940, the Khamba Thoibi Shoireng, has
been mentioned before — he has other volumes of poetry also),
and who also wro(e some fine novels (one of which, Jahera, is

EARLY MAN1PURI CULTURE & LITERATURE

165

on the theme of the love between a Manipuri Hindu young
man and a Muslim girl), as well as some dramas ( lbemma , etc.);
R. K. Shitaljit Singh, author of some novels with a moral and
religious purpose like the Thadokpa, besides the lma and Rohiiji ;
Khwairakpam Chaoba Singh (his historical novel of Labanga-lata
dealing with the period 1597-1652 A.D.is quite popular); Hijom
Guno Singh, a living writer (his four novels are very popular); Sri-
mati Takhellabam Thoibi Devi (authoress of Rddha, a romantic
novel) ; K. Elengbam Rajani Kanta Singh (author of Marup
Ani) ; Sansenbam Nadiya-Chand Singh ; Khumantham Ibohal
Singh ; and quite a number of others. Want of space prevents
the mention of other novelists and short-story writers of note
who are making Manipuri literature quite rich, including the
group of fine translators of works of fiction from Bengali, Eng-
lish and other languages (e.g., Ayekpam Syam-sundar Singh,
translator of the novels of Bankim Chandra Chatterji).

The drama is a literary form particularly dear to the heart
of the Manipuris. In Imphal city, with a population not exceed-
ing 2 lacs, there are half a dozen regular play-houses where
plays in Manipuri (original dramas, or translations or adapta-
tions from Bengali and English) are regularly shown — the
cinema, numbering also half a dozen, has not been yet able to
kill off the regular stage. Eminent dramatists and histrionic
artists have come into existence. The first plays were adapted
from Bengali ; and it was only in 1905 that the first Manipuri
drama, by a Bengali school-teacher, the Pagolini, was staged.
Among noted playwrights are Sorokhaibam Lalit Singh,
Mayanglambam Bir-mangal Singh (author of over a dozen
plays, based, like the Pidonnu, on Old Manipuri history and life,
and also on Puranic as well as modern themes), Tongbram
Git-chandra Singh (over two dozen plays, including some trans-
lations from Shakspere, G. Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen),
Maibam Ramcharan Singh (some 20 plays), Haobam Tomba
Singh, Lairenmayum Ibungohal Singh, Raj-Kumari Binodini
Devi, and a number of others. The Manipuri drama is quite
a convincing example of the high quality and comprehensive
character of the culture ot Manipur.

In pure poetry, in literary and other essays, in historical

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KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

studies, and in all other domains of literature, Manipuri has
quite a rich harvest of books to show. Recently, Professor
Rajkumar Sri Surendrajit Singh has brought out a very compre-
hensive work in Manipuri on Prosody and Metre (1969). It is
only unfortunate that, so far, no English translations (or tran-
slations in other Indian languages) of at least some of the out-
standing classics of Manipuri are available, although Manipuri
scholars, mostly Professors in the Manipuri colleges as well as
officials of the State, are not lagging behind in writing helpful
books in English on the history and literature of their State,
and also on many aspects of their local culture.

Manipuri literature is most emphatically an advanced Modern
Indian literature , and cannot be described as the backward lite-
rature of a so-called Adivasi and primitive people — the Manipuri
writers are already in the front line of modern Indian writing and
translation.

99. The Khasis and the Syntengs : ‘Synteng’ = ‘Jayanta,
Jaintia’ : the 6ld Hindu Kingdom of Jayanta-pura

The Indo-Mongoloid people who have been reserved last for
treatment are the Khasis and the Syntengs. These are as has
been observed more than once before, Indo-Mongoloid in race,
but Austric (Mon-Khmer) in language. Their cultural milieu
is the same as that of their neighbours the Botfos. The
history of the origin of the Khasis is shrouded in mystery.
They are said to be descended from some of the earliest
Mongoloid immigrants into India who changed their language
through contact with Austric speakers, either in Burma or on
the soil of India, in prehistoric times. It is likely they
were spread over a much wider tract — probably over parts at
least of the plain-lands of Sylhet and Kamrup, before they
became finally confined to the Khasi and the Jaintia Hills.
In the north, the Lalungs and Mikirs (of Naga-Kuki origin)
were their neighbours ; in the west, the Bodd-speaking
Garos ; and in the east, also the Bodo-speaking Kacharis ;
while it was only in the south, in Sylhet district, that they
could contact, in historic times, the Aryan-speakers. In their

THE OLD HINDU KINGDOM OF JAYANTA-PURA

167

approach to Hindu religion and culture, lead seems to have
been taken by the Synteng section of the Khasi people, who
from their geographical relationship to the Khasis proper of
Shillong and the Kbasi Hills, can be described as Eastern
Khasis, as the War form Southern Khasis, and the Lyng-
gam are the South-western tribe. These Eastern Khasis
are now known as Syntengs (the word has been spelled
according to the system of Romanisation applied to Khasi by
the Welsh missionaries, in which system the letter y has its
Welsh value, which is like that of the u in the English word
sun or the short d of Hindi and Sanskrit : Synteng , therefore,
represents a pronunciation like sdntefi). Khasi was first reduced
to writing with the Bengali characters during the late 18th
century, it is said. But only with the application of the Roman
alphabet and the creation of a literature of translations and of
folk tales by the Christian missionaries, during the last quarter
of the last century, that the Khasi language may be said
to have started to have authentic records. As in the case
of all languages which have no early written records, it is diffi-
cult to trace their history, particularly in their sounds. The
form Synteng ( = sdnten) gives the modern pronunciation : but
it is quite in the nature of things that an earlier pronunciation
of the word some 500 years ago was *zainteri. The War tribe,
now quite a small one, which lives in the part of the Khasi and
Jaintia Hills adjoining Sylhet, was in all likelihood a branch
of the Syntengs ; and possibly the War have not differentiated
themselves much. In the War dialect, we find frequently initial
z~ in place of the s- in the other dialects. The phonetic law or
the line of phonological change is not known. But z- may be
the earlier sound, just as Khasi s appears to have developed out
of an earil’er c. Thus, War has zia f zan ‘four, five’ saw, san
in the standard dialect. It was thus easy for Synteng *zdinteh ,
or zanteh , to be Sanskritised in the mouths of the Aryan speak-
ers as Jayantd , Jayanti ( j has the value of dz or z in East
Bengali and Assamese) * and the capita! of the Jaintia or Hindu
. Jiasi kingdom, in South Khasi-i.md, came lo oc known a;-.
Jayanta-pura or Jayanti-pura. The Western Khasis remained
ut of the Hindu pale, and their State was known as the State

168

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

of Khyrim, wilh its capital at Nongkrem near Shiliong. Khyrim
and Jayanta or Jaintia from the beginning seem to have been
separate states.

A Hinduised Jayanta or Jaintia State appears to have been
in existence by 1500 A.D., and the first king whose name
we know is Parvata-raya ‘Lord of the Hills’, which is more a
sobriquet than a name. The Jaintias are said to have ousted a
race of Brahman kings ruling on the plains of North Sylhet ;
and according to Assamese accounts the Jaintia kings are said
to have been Brahmans. But that is wrong, as much as a story
giving the origin of the name Khasi , which is derived from the
word meaning ‘castrated’ — a word of Arabic origin and Moham-
madan provenance. The Khasi and Synteng traditions about
their line are not preserved. But there is a legend in an Assa-
mese Buranji describing how the first Jaintia king was the son
of a degraded Brahman named Lan^habar (who used to live
as a Garo and took the name of Suttanga after a Garo who had
adopted him as a son) who had married a girl miraculously born
of a fish. The Jaintia kings first came into prominence in the 16th
century, when the Koch king Nara-narayana’s forces invaded
and conquered the Jaintia country. The Jaintias fought mostly
with their eastern neighbours the Kacharis, and sometimes they
came into conflict with the Ahoms also. We have a list of Jain-
tia kings with Hindu names from the 16th century onwards,
who appear to have been historical persons. Rama Sirpha, the
Jaintia king (1697-1708) waged war on Tamra-dhvaja, the
Kachari king ; and both of them were made his vassals by the
Ahom king Rudra Sirpha (Su-khrung-pha). Rama Siipha was
quite a spirited prince. There was no outstanding personality,
however, among the Jaintias, and after a series of unimportant
kings the Jaintia State was annexed to Bengal by the British in
Calcutta in 1835.

The Jaintia ruling house was perhaps fully Hinduised — they
were staunch Saktas, and the temple of the Goddess Jayanti,
a form of Durga, in Jayanta-pura, the capital of the Jaintias,
became famous all over Bengal and a great part of India as one
of the 51 plfhas or sacred Sakta shrines. The Jaintia kings used
to offer human sacrifices before the goddess (generally condemn-

THE OLD HINDU KINGDOM OF JAYANTA-PURA

169

ed criminals : sometimes the victims were self-chosen, who
were given great honour and were allowed to do whatever they
liked). The Hinduism of the masses was not very deep, and
the matriarchal system of succession (the king’s sister’s son
succeeding him, and not his own son) was in vogue in the
Jaintia kingdom. Khasis and Syntengs were given high posts,
and the royal family never cut itself adrift from its original
Khasi antecedents by affecting a Kshatriya origin : marriages of
members of the ruling house with full-blooded Khasis who
followed their own way of life and their original religion
appears to have been quite the rule. This we see, for instance,
from an interesting ballad in Sylhet Bengali — the Sona-dhaner
Git (edited by SriRajmohan Nath, B.E.,TattvabhOshana, Execu-
tive Engineer, and published from the 6rIhattaSahitya Parishad
of Sylhet, 1947), in which a Jaintia princess falls in love with a
Khasi young man whom she has seen in the street from her
palace, and ultimately they are married, the young Khasi who
is given a Hindu name Lakshmi Simha becoming the king-
consort, as the princess already had inherited her father’s realm
as queen.

The Khasis did not have as striking a past as the Koches,
the Jipras and the Ahoms, but they are a gifted race, highly
intelligent, and they are taking the fullest advantage of modern
education. Of all the Indo-Mongoloid peoples who have kept
up their language and customs and traditions (except where
Christianity has effected inevitable changes and breaks), the
Khasis are the most advanced and most progressive. Shillong,
the capital of Assam, being Khasi territory has had of

course something to do with Khasi progress; and, of course,
there were the Christian missionaries, Protestant and Roman
Catholic. A good many Khasis have felt attracted by the ideals
and philosophy of Hinduism in recent years. The Khasis
have a strong sense of tribal patriotism, and the Roman Catho-
lic Fathers of St. Anthony's College, Shillong, have been instru-
mental in inaugurating a study of Khasi tribal culture, including
laws and customs, songs and traditions, etc., which they are
publishing in a very useful and well got-up series of books in
Khasi (ten volumes projected, from 1936 onwards ; up to 1947,

170

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

five volumes have been published : the works and information
were kindly supplied to me by Mr. Theodore Cajee, B.Sc.,
B.L., B.T., of Laitumkhrah, Shillong).

This Indo-Mongoloid people, though numbering not even
half-a-million, have made its language and literature (now almost
entirely Christian and European in spirit) a subject for study in
colleges. They have established their position among the various
groups of people that go to make up the Indian Nation.

100. Khasi Literature

Khasi is spoken now in Khasi and Jaintia Hills, forming
a part of the new Hill State Meghalaya in North-Eastern India.
The Khasi people number over three and a half lacs, and, as
we have seen, they are two main groups, — the Khasis proper
in the West, and the Syntengs (or Jaintias (or Jayantiyas) in the
East. They are racially Mongoloids. But they have in very
early times — when and how nobody knows— adopted the Aus-
tric Khasi language. They had their own religion and social
life and customs, and their own distinctive socio-political
organisations. They came under Hindu influence from Bengal
through the Jayantias (ancestors of the present day Syntengs)
in the South, and from the Assamese Hindus in the North.
Barring a few traditional stories and folk-tales, and some songs,
they did not have any literature worth mentioning. A good
number of them became Brahmanical Hindus. But through
the efforts of the Welsh Methodist missionaries, backed by
the British Government, a very large percentage of them have
now become Methodist Christians. Roman Catholicism is also
spreading among them, and the monks of the Salesian Order
(founded by Saint Francis de Sales), from Italy, are now work-
ing among the Khasis. Formerly the Khasi language was
written in the Bengali script. But now through the efforts of
the Welsh Missionaries, they have accepted the Roman,
with Welsh values for some of the Roman letters.

Through their contact with Christianity, the Khasis have
advanced much in education, though mainly through English.

KHASI LITERATURE

171

A little literature, under Christian inspiration, is growing up
among them. There is of course the translation of the Christian
scriptures into Khasi.

Contact with Hinduism is helping the Khasis to take greater
interest in their own religion, culture, and institutions, and
some cultured Khasis, who are not in all cases Christians, have
written in Khasi as well as in English on various aspects of their
culture and social usages. The Khasis, as an intelligent and
progressive people, have got a number of highly cultivated edu-
cationists and men in public life, and there is thus a great possi-
bility of further development of Khasi literature.

One of the pioneers in Khasi literature was a Bengali,
Nilmani Chakravarti (born 1859 near Diamond Harbour, south
of Calcutta). The leaders of the Brahmo Samaj in Calcutta
appointed Chakravarti a Brahmo preacher in Shillong, and here
he found a collaborator in a Khasi Brahmo, gentleman, U Jibon
Roy. Chakravarti learnt Khasi and wrote a number of school-
books in Khasi, and started an English school for Khasis.
A Brahmo Samaj was established by the joint efforts of Khasis
and Bengalis. U Jibon Roy’s two sons studied in Bengal. His
elder son U Sib-charan Roy compiled a polyglot dictionary
in Khasi, Bengali, Sanskrit and Hindi, and translated the
Bhagavad-Gita into Khasi. In 1971 Nilmani Chakravarti publish-
ed a big compilation of Brahmo hymns in Khasi. U Jibon Roy
set up the first press to print Khasi books (in the Bengali and
Roman character) at Shillong in 1895. U Jibon Roy also started
writing and printing Khasi books, and he brought out his first
Khasi book, Ka Niam Jong Ki Khasi on the religion of the
Khasis, and in his Ka Kitab Saphang Wei Ublei , he tried to
show how the original Khasi faith was monotheistic. He wrote
also in Khasi the lives of Buddha and Chaitanya. Early in
the 20th century, the two sons of U Jibon Roy — Sib-charan
Roy and Dina-nath Roy— wrote two dramas, one on Savitri and
Satyavan , and the other on Nala and Damayanti . U Jibon Roy
was the real founder of Khasi literature : born in a middle
class Khasi family of Shillong, he became a high Government
official, and came under the influence of Nilmani Chakravarti)
and advanced Bengali thought.

172

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

The Ramakrishna Mission Sannyasis were another impot^-
tant group of educationists among the Khasis from Cherrapunji/
Swami Prabhananda started work in 1924 at Sebah, and
with the help of a Bengali doctor Mathuranath Dev and a
Khasi gentleman Elzo Kishor Roy, he founded a Middle Eng-
lish school at Cherrapunji in 1931, which has now developed
into a great centre of education and culture among the Khasis.
His friend Swami Arohanananda and other monks joined
him, and the Ramakrishna Mission centre with a chain of insti-
tutions was built up, despite stiff opposition from the Christian
missionaries. Along with Shillong, it is a great centre for
Khasi culture now.

Among Khasi writers and scholars, poets and dramatists
at the present-day, who are building up a small modern lite-
rature in the language, we may note some important names.
U Rabon Singh's book on the Customs of the Khasis , dealing
with Khasi religious rituals and soeial usages, and his Book of
Legends , giving collections of folk-tales, and U Radhon Singh
Berry’s Proverbs of the Ancients ( 1902), as well as Nelson Jaid’s
work on Old Practices and Observances present a mass of folk-
lore material for the study of Khasi life and culture. Sib-
charan Roy’s books on the Khasi Concept of God and Man
and on Khasi Ethics are noteworthy works. The History of the
Khasis (1914) by B. K. Sarma Roy is an up-to-date and authori-
tative work for the time. Khasi Geography (1920) by Ondro
Muney deals also with the economic, political, and social struc-
ture of Khasi society.

The work of U Rabon Singh,, of U Sib-charan Roy (son of
U Jibon Roy) in describing Khasi institutions and culture was
continued by a number of other writers, particularly Dr. H.
Lyngdoh, whose work The Prayer Dance and the Cremation of the
Cherra Syiems (1923) has been described as ‘monumental’. This
work ‘explains in detail the political organisation prevailing
and the state ceremonies observed in the Khasi States’. In
the Khasi political structure, the Syiem or ‘Ruler’ has his pecu-
liar place* In 1937 Dr. Lyngdoh brought out another great
book on the political organisation as well as the religious ideas
and beliefs of the Khasis, including the practice of the burial

KHASI LITERATURE

173

cromlechs, and belief in transmigration. Two Salesian (Italian)
missionaries, J. Bacchiarello (in his Foot-prints of Our Ancestors ,
1930) and G. Costa (in his work on the Concept of the Syiem-
ship, 1936), continued this line of investigation. Mention has
already been made of the series of small illustrated books in Khasi
published from Shillong, giving short accounts of Khasi life
and ways as they are at the present day by Theodore Cajee
and others. R.M.R. Nongoum’s The Khasis in the Past (1959)
is also a good resume of Khasi history and culture.

In modern literature, there are some noted writers, and Soso
Tham, known as ‘the Khasi Wordsworth’, is an outstanding
poet and prosateur who has been quite an innovator in the
.hasi language. His first work appeared in 1925. He is
essentially a writer on Humanity as a whole. He is nevertheless
a great admirer of the old life and ways of his people, which he
has extolled in his Ancient Days of the Seven Huts. P. Gatphoh
(author of The Stag's Adventure , describing the natural beauty
of the bills), B. Thangkhien (his book of poems Words and
Songs appeared in 1936), and Victor Bareh (Poems, published
1957) are the most distinguished poets and song-writers of
Khasi at the present day. Victor Bareh is the author of a popular
patriotic drama on the life of U Tirot Singh (1956), a great
Khasi freedom fighter, who died in the British prison at Dacca.
F. M. Pugh’s Khasi translation of Shakspere’s As You Like
It is a noteworthy work.

Khasi literature shows a striking advance in the essay and
journalism. From 1895 onwards, in Khasi magazines began to
come out — The Watchman (editor U Jibon Roy), the Khasi
To-day (edited by H. R. Diengdoh), and Bright Star (from
1903). The political and socio-economical writings of the
Rev. J. J. M. Nichols Roy, B- M. Pugh’s books on agriculture,
S. Blah’s Pamphlets on the Flora of the Hills, and Hamlet
Bareh’s book the Freedom Movement in the Jaintia Hilis , are
Khasi writings of this type. Professor Gilbert Swell is another
great leader of the Khasis in political and journalistic writings.

This incomplete account (taken from Xerxes Lyngdoh’s
paper on Khasi Literature, Hindusthan Standard , Calcutta
5 and 12 July 1967), just gives a brief indication of the moderni-

174

kirata-jana-krti

sation of an interesting and important emerging language of
the Austric Family in India. (Cf. also the important articles in
Bengali: Amalendu Chakravarti, Bdhgdli-Khdsiydr Saipskritik
Rdkhi-bandhan ‘Cultural Ties of Brotherhood between Bengalis
Khasis’ in the Calcutta Daily Jugantar of 20 July 1972 ; and
Swami Sutrananda Puri, Pdhdde Bharatiya Bhava-dhard-Prachar
‘Dissemination of Indian Ideologies in the Hills’ in the Katha -
Sdhitya , Vol. 24, No. 9, Ashacjha, pp. 1159-1164.)

101. The Early Indo- Mongoloid Kings of
Chittagong and Arakan

The district of Chittagong, now entirely Bengali-speaking,
is linguistically a continuation of Comilla and Noakhali. The
Bengali of Chittagong has undergone some noted develop-
ments, but on a Comilla and Noakhali basis : and in phonetics
and phonology and syntax, if not so much in morphology,
Chittagong Bengali undoubtedly shows a strong influence of
the earlier languages which have receded before Bengali. The
Chakma dialect of Bengali, spoken by the Buddhist Chakma
tribe living in Chittagong Hills District, is Chittagong Bengali,
with some features which connect it with West Bengali and
Assamese.

Nothing is known about the early history of Chittagong
and of the tract in Burma contiguous to it, viz., Arakan. The
original inhabitants might have been Austro-Asiatics allied to
the Khasis on the one hand and the Mons or Talaings on the
other — possibly they were more closely related to the Mons.
Later on, they were overlaid by Bo<^o-speaking Sino-Tibetans
from Comilla and Noakhali in Bengal, and by Kuki-Chin
speakers of the same ‘race’ from the Chittagong Hills. It is
not known when the Mran-ma or Burmese^speaking tribes from
the northern part of the Irrawaddy valley crossed the Arakan
Yoma Mountains and settled in Arakan, and gradually made
the whole tract Burmese in speech. The Arakan dialect of
Burmese preserves some archaic features in pronunciation, e.g.,
the retention of the r sound, which becomes y in Standard

INDO-MONGOLOID KINGS OP CHITTAGONG AND ARAKAN 175

Burmese. The Burmese (Mran-ma) people consolidated them-
selves in Pagan (Pukam) in the 11th century, and after that they
entered intoalife-and-death struggle with their Mon neighbours
in the South, which led, after seven centuries, to the final sup-
pression of the Mons, forcing them (or rathertheir language) to
a small tract at the head of the Gulf of Martaban, and Burma-
nising the whole of Central and Lower Burma. Their pene-
tration into Arakan would date from a period after 1200 A.D.

While Austro-Asiatic Arakanese and Sino-Tibetans (Bo<Jos
and Kukis — and not Mran-mas or Burmans as yet) occupied
Chittagong and Arakan, Brahmanical and Buddhist culture
together with an influx of Aryan-speakers arrived in this area,
in the early centuries of the Christian era. Brahmans from
Bengal came to Chittagong and spread into Arakan also ; and
Kshatriyaand other adventurers from Eastern U.P, also arrived,
and made Settlements and established themselves in Arakan.
The city of Vcsali (or VaiSali^was built by them near the present
town of Mrohaung (or Myohaung) near Akyab. Close con-
nexions were maintained with Brahmanical and Buddhistic
Bengal on the one hand, and with the Irrawaddy Valley Mons
and later Burmese on the other. Local princely houses, Brah-
manical as well as Buddhist, using Sanskrit in their inscriptions
(showing the presence of a considerable Brahman element in
the population), are found to flourish from the early centuries
of the Christian era for over a thousand years, till after
1200 A.D. Arakan really became a part of India, and Indian
(Bengali) influences continued right down to the 1 7th- 18th cen-
turies, long after the country in its language and national affi-
liation became Burmese. The Arakan court was an important
centre for Bengali literature in the 17th century, when Bengali-
speaking Muslims from Chittagong served the Burmese-speak-
ing and Buddhist Arakanese kings in various capacities, and
patronised Muslim Bengali poets like Daulat KazI and Alaol ;
and the city of Roshang in Arakan was an important Brahman
centre, from where Bengali Brahmans speaking Chittagong
Bengali migrated to Ava and Arnara-pura and Mandalay at
the invitation of Aloungpra and other Burmese kings, and
established themselves there (18th century A,D.).

176

KlRATA-jANA-ItRTr

The achievements of thelndo-Mongoloid kings in Chittagong
and Arakan, particularly during the first millennium A.D. are
not fully known. Later Arakanese chronicles in Burmese give
some garbled versions, tracing the foundation of Brahmanical
dynasties to the 2nd century A.D. But these chronicles do not
let us have any positive evidence about the affinities of the peo-
ple, nor are they reliable about the succession of rulers, or
ruling houses even, and their dates.

A number of Sanskrit inscriptions and coins going back to
the middle of the 1st millennium A.D., however, give the im-
pression of Arakan (or rather North Arakan) being really the
easternmost outpost of India. The most important of these
inscriptions, though not the oldest, is that of a king Ananda-
candra, inscribed in the eastern form of the Indian alphabet as
current in Bengal in the early part of the 8th century. The
language is Sanskrit, and the inscription, which is a fairly long
one, gives 65 verses in different metres, with a few lines of prose
in the middle. It is on a face of a stone pillar in the Sitthaung
Pagoda in Mrohaung in Arakan. It is of the nature of a Pra-
iasti or Panegyric of the king Ananda-candra ; and before
dwelling upon his achievements as a powerful king and builder
of Buddhist and Brahmanical temples and monasteries, his
largesses to the Buddhist monks and his offerings to Buddhist
temples, his excavation of wells and restoration of old temples,
and his marriage with Dhenda, the daughter of the Saiva
Andhra king Mano-dhira of Tamra-pattana (a place not yet
identified), the first 43 verses from a sort of chronicle for
Arakan (Vesall) for some 547 years, giving lists of kings and
ruling houses who ruled in Arakan (the first 200 years being
rather mythological). Coins have been found which bear some
of the names given in the list of Arakan kings prior to Ananda-
candra who set up the inscription. Three dynasties are men-
tioned, with some intervening kings between the second and
third dynasties. Most of the names of the rulers throughout this
long period of over 500 years are in Sanskrit, but some names
are in one (or more) non-Aryan speech (or speeches) which
cannot be properly made out. Thus, the fourth and fifth kings
of the first dynasty are Bahu-balin and Raghu-pati (the first

INDO-MONGOLOiD KINGS OF CHITTAGONG AND ARAKAN 177

three names are not legible in the inscription), and the third
king is Candrodaya. They are given mythologically long reigns
of 120 years each. Then we have some Annaveta kings who
ruled only for 5 years : the name Annaveta probably suggests
some indigenous rulers. After another king, whose name is
lost, and who ruled for the improbable period of 77 years, we
have some 6 rulers with non-Sanskritic names, Rimbhyappa ,
Queen Kuverami, her husband Umavlrya , then Jugna , and Lanki
or Linki. After Lanki we have Dveft Candra , the founder of a
dynasty, attested partly by coins, of 13 successive rulers, each
bearing the name Candra (Dveft Candra, Raja-candra, Kala-
candra, Deva-candra, Yajna-candra, Candra-bandhu, Bhumi-
candra, Bhuti-candra, Niti-candra, Vlrya-candra, Prlti-candra,
Prthvi-candra and Dhrti-candra), their total rule amounting to
230 years — a period corroborated by the Arakan Burmese chro-
nicles, though the dates are later. We have thus a Candra
dynasty of Arakan, which might have been connected with a
similar Candra dynasty of kings in East Bengal, who ruled
during the lOth-llth centuries (see History of Bengal, Vol. I,
Hindu Period, ed. by R. C. Majumdar and published by the
University of Dacca, 1943, pp. 192-197).

After Dhrti-candra, the Candra power failed, and Mahavira,
king of Pureppura, became king of Arakan (Vesali). After
Mahavira came two kings with non-Aryan names — Vrayajap
(or Brayajap) and Sevihreh — names of unknown meaning and
origin. Then came Vajra-iakti.

Vajra-Sakti was the founder of the house to which Ananda-
candra belonged. The family was described as devaytfaja and
dharmarajantfaja family : names which are not clear — it was
probably some totemistic names which was then well-understood.
The kings were Buddhists after Vajra-Sakti — Dharma-vijaya,
Narendra-vijaya, Vira-narendra-candra, and then Ananda-
candra. He was impartially a supporter of Buddhism and Brah-
manism, and Brahmans were settled in mafhas or monasteries,
as much as Buddhists in vihdras .

Names of other kings are found in later inscriptions— two
with an element Suracandra (viz., Sirpha-gaftapati-Suracandra
and Sirpha-vikrama-Suracandra) are found who belonged to
12

178 kikata-jana-krtj

.the 10th century. Some place-names are found, which suggest
pre-Aryan place-names in Bengal inscriptions — e.g., Naulakka ,
Domagha, Dahkahgdmarganga tfuvdra and Bhurokanaulakkala -
v drak a.

This single inscription gives us a good deal about the milieu
for Brahmanisation or Indianisation of the Kirata peoples of
Chittagong and North Arakan before the 8th century. (See
E. H. Johnston, ‘Some Sanskrit Inscriptions of Arakan' in t te
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Londc l,
Vol. XI, 1943-46, pp. 357-385.)

102 . The Kirata World Beyond India

The lands to the East of India up to the China Sea were
known to the Greeks and Romans as Ifidia beyond the Gages
(‘IndiaextraGangem’), or Farther India as it has been Englished
(or Pratara Bhdrata, as it can be Sanskritised). We have in this
area Burma, and beyond Burma, Siam and French Indo-China
(Laos and Viet-nam). The peoples are either Austto-Asiat;c(the
Mens and Khmers, and the less important or backward peoples
like the Paloung and the Wa in Burma, and several small tribes in
Indo-China) or Sino-Tibetan (the Burmese and other Tibeto-
Burmans in Burma, the Karens, and the various’ ramifications
of the Thai or Shan people) ; and besides^ there were the Chams
or Champa people, equally Austric with the Mons and the
Khmers, and the Viet-nam people (Tonkinese, Annamites),
whose exact linguistic affinity is not known — they are probably
Austric at base, with strong Thai and Simc influences. The
Austrics — Mons in South Burma and South Siam, and Khmers
in Cambodia— received Indian culture by both land and sea as
in the case of Burma, and by sea (Indo-China), and they passed
it on (with Brahmanical and Buddhist religion and literature,
Indian writing, Indian arts and crafts, etc.) to their northern
neighbours the Tibeto-Chinese Burmans and Pyus, and the
Sino-Tibetan Thai. We have in this vast area a continuation
of what we see in Assam and Eastern India: a large population
of Mongoloids, who became Indianised in religion and culture.

INDO- MONGOLOID LITERATURE

179

The Aryan language penetrated, but only as a culture drift — it
could not create a place for itself as a language of the people.
Brahman priestly preachers and teachers and Kshatriya adven-
turers penetrated into this area from early, possibly pre-Christian,
times, by way of East Bengal and Assam, and by way of the sea
from South Bengal, Orissa and the Telugu and Tamil coasts,
and they gave the intellectual and ruling aristocracy. It was a
projection of India into a Sino-Tibetan and Austric world, both
racially and spiritually.

To complete the picture of the achievements of the Kirata
people outside the geographical limits of India when they
accepted Indian religion, culture and letters, a history of the
Mons, the Chams, the Burmese, the Pyus, the Thai in their various
branches, ofthe Khmers and partly of the Viet-nam people, will
be necessary. But such an extended study is beyond the scope
of the present monograph, and special works on Burmese and
Indo-Chinese history and civilisation (as expressed, among
other things, in Burmese and Siamese architecture and drama
and other arts, the architecture and art of the Khmers and
Chams, etc.) are to be consulted. (For a brief resume of this
phase of Indian cultural expansion. Sir Richard Carnac Tem-
ple s excellent survey of Burmese and Indo-Chinese history,
traditional and otherwise, with chronological statements, as
published in the Indian Antiquary for 1916, pp. 39fiT, is to be
mentioned.)

103. Jndo-Mongoloid Literature

The Indo-Mongoloid peoples, including their kinsmen out-
side India like the Burmese, the Siamese and the Chinese, have
not produced anything in the epic or heroic scale in literature.
One exception is in the case of the Tibetans, who have creaud
at least one great epic cycle of legendary stories, those relating
to the hero-king Gesar or Kesar of Gling— a cycle comparable
to the Sanskrit Mahdbhdrata epic, the Old Greek Homeric epics,
the Rustam cycle in the Iranian Shah-nama , the Gilgamesh epic
of ancient Babylonia, the Sigurd-Brynhild epic of the ancient

180

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

Germanic peoples, and the Concobar cycle of the ancient Irish,
(See A Lower Ladakhi Version of the Kesar Saga by A. H. Franc-
k:e, Ph.D., with introduction by Suniti Kumar Chatterji,
R. A. S.B., Calcutta, 1905-1941.) Theirgenius in literature, parti-
cularly among the Kiratas of India, found an expression more
in short tales — legendary episodes or folk-tales and fairy
tales, and in lyrics. As they were not acquainted with writing,
these have not generally been preserved — except among the
Meitheis, among whom the art of writing was established some
centuries ago. This literature is of a primitive, unsophisticated
sort. Along with the Meitheis, the Newars alone produced a
literature of a learned type, under the inspiration of both Sans-
krit and the North Indian Modern Aryan languages — Maithili,
Bengali and Kosali. This literature still waits to be investiga-
ted, edited and published. The Darbar Library at Kathmap^o
in Nepal is believed to possess a rich collection of Mss. of
Newari works, original and translated from Sanskrit, which
must be looked into.

The Indo-Mongoloids, or certain sections of them at least, are
factual, and as such the art of writing history developed among
some of them— e.g., the Ahoms, the Meitheis and the Newars.
The Tipras also tried to create a national history out of Tip ra
legends and Hindu Puranas , the Rajamala in Bengali verse. All
these have been mentioned before. So far only one history
book in the Thai Ahom language has been edited and published,
and not a single one in Newari. Here is scope for valuable work
by specialists in these languages.

Indo-Mongoloid folk-literature has so far been gleaned only
by a few European administrators and anthropologists working
among the various Indo-Mongoloid peoples for the last half a
century. Not much has been gathered so far, and possibly the
entire available material among the backward peoples will not
be large. But enough has been obtained from the different
tribes to warrant the necessity for closer enquiry and search.
One or two interesting things force themselves to our view
from a study of the folk-tales current among some of the
Kirata peoples. There are some motifs which we find in com-
mon with Aryan folk-lore, and Austric folk-lore also. Thus, for

I N DOM ONGOLOI D LI I FR ATURE

181

instance, we may mention the wo/// of a goddess reciprocating
the love of a human lover, and sometimes the goddess is a
swan-maiden, a creation of specifically the Indo-European ima-
gination, as we are accustomed to think. The oldest versions
of this motif we find among the Indian Aryans and the Greeks,
the among other Indo-Europran-speaking peoples. The story
of Pururavas and Urva^i in the Rig Veda, in the Sata-patha
Brdhmana , in Kalidasa and in the Purdnas , that of fSantanu and
Ganga, and of Samvarana and Tapati as in the Mahdbhdrata ,
and of Aphrodite and Ankhises and Eos and Tithonos in the
Greek legend, are instances in point. In Roman mythology we
have the story of King Numa and the nymph Egeria ; in Ger-
manic legend that of Weland (VolundT) and his brothers and
the Valkyries, and Sigurd and Brynhild. The divine woman
is frequently a swan-maiden or bird-maiden whose power of
flying away from place to place depended upon her swan plum-
age, or, in some cases, upon her special fairy garments. In the
Vedic Pur Liravas-Urvasi story, this is hinted at :
shea yadasu jdhati$u dtkam
drndnu$i$u mdnu$o nifeve (Rig-Veda, X, 95, 8)
‘When I, a mortal, wooed to my embrace these heavenly
nymphs who laid aside their raiment’ (--their feather
garments ?). (Translation by Ralph T. H. Griffiths.)

This motif spread, it would appear, over a great part of the
world. The Japanese No play of Hagoramo, where a heavenly
nymph or angel cannot fly away to heaven because her feather
garments are taken from her by a fisherman, and the angel is forced
to buy her freedom by exhibiting to the captor a hea\enly dance;
and the Arabian Nights story of Hasan of Basra who captures and
marries a divine or fairy woman whose garment of plumage is
her only means of flight, are other instances. Santa! folk-tales hate
a story - more than one story of maidens from aim ng the
Bohga or supernatural folk falling in love with Santa! herdboys
or hunters — indicate the occurrence of the motif among if.e
Austric kol or Munda peoples also.

Ann g the I iido-Monguloids also, we have the same or similar
stone ,, The beautiful Mikir folk-tale of Harata- Kunwar, men-
tioned before (§ 88) is in some respects comparable to that of

182 kirAta-jana-krti

•

Pururavas and Urvasi in Indo-Aryan myth. Also the Kachari
story of the merchant lad (as given by S. Endle in his Kacha-
ris , London, 1911, pp. 115-121), and the Garo story of Gunal
and his wife the bird-maiden Singwil (as given by Playfair in
his book on the Garos). The Nagas also have a slight tale
belonging to the same family in folk-lore (cf. the Angami Naga
story — ‘How Jesu got a Goddess for his wife’, Linguistic Survey
of India , Vol. Ill, Part II, Bodo, Naga and Kachin Groups,

pp. 218-220).

Here we have a possible point of contact between Aryan
myth and lndo-Mongoloid story-telling. Others may be found.
There is no doubt that Drdvitfa and Ni$dda and Kirata stories
have lived on even after the Aryanisation in language and
Hmduisation in religion of these peoples. A great many of the
pre-Aryan myths and cults have found a place within the fold
of Hinduism. The cosmogenic conceptions of Hinduism are
largely of pre-Aryan ( Nifdda and Kirata) origin. The study of
Kirata myth and legend and folk-lore and folk-tales as well as
poetry on the lines of Verrier Elwin’s studies of Central Indian
(Dravidian and Kol) myth and legend, cults and tales should be
continued, for the lndo-Mongoloid speeches and peoples, to
find their proper place in (he evolution of Hindu myth, legend
and cults.

The lndo-Mongoloid peoples are slowly rediscovering t heir
languages. The Newars had a passionate love of their language,
and once more literature is being created in it. A scholar like
Amritananda Bhikshu with his fellow-workers is helping to
create a new literary tradition m Newari (see § 52), and the
recent revolution in Nepal will certainly lead to a new develop-
ment of Newari literature. Speakers of Newari have obtained
a formal recognition of their language in the Tri-Chandra
University of Nepal, and are working to write histories of their
language and literature. Mampun has quite a vigorous literary
life which has bee a lifted before. Manipuri is a subject for the
B.A. examination as a Vernacular or mother-tongue, in the
Universities. It is taught in schools and colleges. So is Khasi,
which under Christian inspiration has made great progress.
The Naga dialects also are seeking recognition in the schools

CONCLUSION

183

d colleges. A new stir for literary life is now noticeable
mong most of the speakers of the various Kirfita languages.
This should be welcomed as a factor in a New Indian Renais-
sance, in which Aryan and non-Aryan have both a part; and
as a part of their cultural rehabilitation, the movements
should be helped, while introducing among the backward
Kirata peoples the study of a contiguous Aryan language like
Nepali, Assamese, Bengali or Hindi, as well as of English as the
most important pan-Indian link- language and international
language.

104. Conclusion

In the above pages 1 have tried to give a short survey of
the nature of Kirata or Indo-M ongoloid participation in Indian
history, and their contribut?on in the evolution of Hindu or
Indian culture for the last. 3,000 years. The Kiratas or Indo-
Mongoloids from the Vedic times onwards have been the fourth
basic element in the formation of the Indian people, and we
find them taking their share in Hindu history, beginning with
the battle of Kurukshetra, from the 10th century before
Christ. Kirata or Indo-M ongoloid influences may have affec-
ted the life and religion of the Vedic Aryans as well. The ques-
tion of Kirata influences in the life of the Pandavas still remains
an open question. One of the most outstanding international
personalities of both India and the World, Buddha, who is
among the greatest thought-leaders and teachers of mankind,
and who embodies in himself the principles of Ahirpsa , Karufia
and Maitri—of Non-injury, Mercy and Charity, which are so
characteristic of India, was, for aught we know, of pure or mixed
Indo-Mongoloid origin ; and through him and other personali-
ties, we have a material and spiritual kinship with the Buddhist
Mongoloid world.

The study of this aspect of the evolution of Indian culture
and history has not been done proper justice to as yet. Many
of us are not as yet alive to the nature and importance of the
problems. Closer study through the various human sciences

184

K T R A r A - 1 ANA-KKTl

should be carried on with greater circumspcrm r, — through
Anthropology (some work has been done in this, the University
of Calcutta through its Department of Anthropology taking its
humble share;, through Linguistics, through Sociology, through
Comparative Religion, through Comparative Literature and
through Political History. From even a broad survey of these
studies, we can see that, at least in the areas where they established
themselves, they furnished a new and a fourth elerrent, and
quite a powerful one, m the formation of medieval Hindu
religion and culture.

Closely interlinked as the various groups of the Indo-
Mongoloids were with the affairs of India for over 2,500 years,
and considering also the brilliant part they played in becoming
the champions of Hindu culture and fighters in the protracted
war for Hindu political freedom in North and E:ast Bengal and
Assam, they have become an integral part of the body-politic
in India, from the deathless story of which land it will never be
possible to minimise or relegate to oblivion their services and
their contribution. Can we think of Indian History and Civi-
lisation, particularly in Eastern India, without the contributions
of the Licchavis and the Newars, the Koch, Kachari, Tipra and
other Bodo peoples (details of whose services are now matters
of research), the Ahoms, the Jaintias and the Manipuris ?

105. ‘Kiratavadana-NamanT : An Indo-Mongoloid
Roll of Honour

1. Bhagadatta, Legendary King of Pragjyoti$a, c. 10th
century B.C.

2. Buddha (Problematical) : c. 500 B.C.

3. The Licchavl Princes and Oligarchs, c. 500 B.C.

4. Kumaradevi, Licchavi Princess, Queen of Chandra-gupta
I, c. 450 A.D.

5. Mana-deva, Licchavi King of Nepal, c , 496 A.D.

6. Amsu-varman of Nepal, c. 640 A D. (His daughter Princess
Bhrkuti, Queen of Srong-btsan-sgam-Po King of Tibet.)

7. King Aramudi of Nepal, c. 680 A.D.

8. The Nepal (Newar) Buddhist Scholars — Ratna-klrtti,

AN I N DO-MONGO LO in ROLL OF HONOUR

185

Vairocana, Kanaka-jri. Pham-mthin, Jnana-vajra — 10th-
1 1th ccnturjes A.D.

9. Jaya-sthiti-malla, Newar King of Nepal, 1380-1390 A.D.

10. King Jvotir-malla, Son of Jaya-sthr malla, c. 1428 A.D.

11. Siddhi-narasimha-malla, King of Pa{an, Builder of the
Krishna-temple at Patan, distinguished ruler, 1620-1657 (?)
A.D.

12. Jagaj-jyotir-malla, King of Bhatgaon, Patron of Arts and
Letters, c. 1625.

13. Bhupatindra-maHa of Bhatgaon, Patron of Arts and
Letters and Architecture, 1687-1721 A.D,

14. Rana-malla of Kath-man^o, c. 1500 A.D.

15. Amara-malla, Son of Ratna-malla, Patron of History and
the Dance, c. 1510 A.D.

16. Mahendra-malla of Kath-man^o, c. 1560 A.D.

17. Lak$mi-narasirpha-malla of Kafh-maqdo, c. 1595 A.D.

18. Bhima-malla, Minister of Laksmi-narasirpha-malla, c.

1595 A.D.

19. Pratapa-malla of Kalh-mando, his Queens Rupamati and
Rajamatl, 1639-1689 A.D.

20. Yoga-narendra-malla of Pa{an, c. 1680-1700 A.D.

21. Bhaskara-varman, Kumara, Bhaskara-dyuti of Kama-
rupa, c. 640 A.D.

22. Sala-stamblia, Mleccha (i.e., Mech) King, c. 650 A.D.

23. Brahma-pala of Prag-jyoti$a, his Queen KuladevI, early
1 1th century A.D.

24. Ratna-paia of Prag-jyoti$a, mid- 11th century A.D.

25. Timgya-deva of Kama-rupa, c. 1100 A.D.

26. The ‘Rae of KamrudL Assam King contemporaneous
with Muhammad bin Bakhtyar, c. 1200 A.D.

27. Su-ka-pha, First Ahom King, c. 1228 A.D.

28. Su-teu-pha, Ahom King, c 1270 A.D.

29. Su-dang-pha, Ahom King, c. 1400 A.D.

30. Su-hung-mung Svarga-Narayana, Ahom King, 1497-1539
A.D.

31. Momai Tamuii Bar-barua, Ahom Minister of Su-hung-
mung Dihingia Raja, c. 1530 A.D.

Su-kam-pha, Ahom King, c. 1552-1603 A.D.

32 .

186

KIRATA-JANA-KRTI

33. Su-seng-pha Pratapa-Sirnha, Ahom King, 1603-1641 A.D.

34. Lachit Bar-phukan, Ahom General, c. 1617 A.D.

35. Gadadhar-Simha Su-pat-pha, Ahom King, 1681-1696 A.D.

36. Jayamati Kunwarl, wife of Gadadhar Sirnha, c. 1670 A.D.

37. Rudra-Simha Su-khrung-pha, Ahom King, 1696-1714
A.D.

38. Detsung, King of Kachar, c. 1530 A.D.

39. Visva-Simha of Koch Bihar, c. 1520 A.D.

40. Nara-narayana Sirnha of Koch Bihar, c. 1550 A.D.

41. Sukla-dhvaj Cila Ray, General, Brother of Nara-Nara-
yana, c. 1550 A.D.

42. Hacengsa, Early Kachar Kiog, ? Date unknown.

43. Satru-damana Pratapa-narayana, Kachar Kn.g : Date?

44. Queen Tripura-sundari, wife of Tripura King Ceng-thom-
pha, c. 1280 A.D.

45. King Dharma-manikya-deva of Tripura, c . 1431-1462 A.D.

46. Comtawa (or Cantai) Durlabhendra, Tripura Priest and
historian, c. 1450 A.D.

47. King Dhanya-manikya-deva of Tripura and his Queen
Kamala Devi : ? 1463-1515 A.D.

48. Caycag, General of Dhanya-manrkya, c. 1500 A.p.

49. Rasahga-mardana Narayana, General of Dhanya-mani-
kya, c . 1500 A.D.

50. Vijaya-manikya-deva, King of Tripura, 1 529-1 570 A.D.

51. Amara-Manikya-deva, King of Tripura, 1596-1611 A.D. •

52. Pakhangba, Manipur Hero King, c. 100 A.D. (?)

53. Khamba, Mcithei Hero, and Princess Thoibi ol Manipur,
c. 1120. A.D.

54. Kiyamba, Manipur King, c. 1468 A.D.

55. Khagemba, Manipur King, c. 1680 A.D.

56. Pamheiba, Gopal Sirnha, Gharib-Nawaz, Manipur King,
1709-1748 A.D.

57. Bhagya-candra Jaya-simha, Moramba, Manipur King,
Vaishnava devotee, initiator of the Manipur Rasa Dance,
c. 1780 A.D.

58. Princess Bimbavati, daughter of Bhagya candra, created
Manipuri Krishna-Radha Rasa Dance, ‘Mira-Bal of
Manipur 7 , c. 1780 A.D.

AN INDO-MONGOLOID ROLL OF HONOUR

187

59. Garabhira-simha, Manipur King, c\ 1830 A.D.

60. Parvata-ray, Jaintia King, c. 1500 A.D.

61. Rama-simha, Jaintia King, c. 1700 A.D.

62. Pandita-raja Atombapu Carina Vidyaratna (1889-1963)
of Manipur, Sanskrit and Meithei Scholar, Educationist,
Religious, Cultural and Political Leader, Journalist.

63. U Jibon Roy, Khasi Writer and Intellectual Leader,
end of the I9th century.

64. U Rowland Thomas Roy, Khasi Scholar and Education-
ist, early 20th century.